


Your Secrets Have Their Secrets (And They Will Screw Me Over)

by petting_a_bumblebee



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Avengers Family, Comic Book Violence, Concentration Camps, Domestic Avengers, Double Agents, Dysfunctional Nazi Family, Enemies to Lovers, Espionage, Family Drama, Gaslighting, Happy Ending, Helmut's head is a Spooky Place, Humor, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Johann Schmidt is a grieving widow (who wants to blow up the world), M/M, Misunderstandings, No Secret Empire Stuff anywhere, PSI Mutant Powers, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Protective Steve Rogers, Rare Pairings, Secret Identity, Secrets, Sex Pollen (kind of), Slow Burn, Soul Bond (kind of), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve Rogers is Not Hydra, Temporary Character Death, The Avengers Are Good Bros, The Hydra, The S.H.I.E.L.D, Tony is a drunkard but getting better, War Crimes, plus other bad memories from the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 121,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22225240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petting_a_bumblebee/pseuds/petting_a_bumblebee
Summary: “That sounded exactly like Red Skull”, Zemo snickered, after he had gotten his breathing under control again. “You are funny, Rogers. People never tell you Captain America is funny.”These are the only facts Steve Rogers knows for sure. The fact number one: his new commanding officer, Director Nicholas Fury, is a man Steve wouldn’t trust even with his milk money. The fact number two: Commander Helmut Zemo of Hydra West is a terrorist bad guy supreme, but making himself oddly at home in the SHIELD custody. Steve is soon to learn the fact number three: in a slippery world of espionage nothing is as it first seems.
Relationships: Captain America/Baron Zemo, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Helmut Zemo, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (one-sided)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 25





	1. The Villain Makes His First Appearance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers learn about Steve’s speech problems, and after Fury stops being a helicopter parent, Steve gets to meet a name from his past.

Let’s be clear. The villain from the heading was not the guy who was sitting next to Steve in the flashy little car. Even if he had his usual leering set to his mouth and his goatee called beard made him look like a rogue satyr. And then there was Steve’s urge to strangle the man.

No sir. No strangling or any kind of violence in sight. Iron Man was a hero, or at least the SHIELD files about him told that to Steve. His real name was Tony Stark and he was (in his own words) a genius, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist. Maybe in that particular order, but probably not.

Tony was also the only son of Howard Stark, an inventor Steve had known as a young bachelor. Now Howard and his wife were dead and they had a son who was older than Howard had been during the war. There indeed had been a time when Steve had done his duty and was not lost in this strange future world where sports cars were not glorious pieces of machinery, but cramped little things he had learned to hate with a feeling.

Forget Mark Twain and _A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur_. Time travel is a bunch of crap. Not fun at all.

For Steve Tony was not even a genius etc. He was just a bored rich guy asking Steve to move in to live with him.

Oh what a Cinderfella story! If Steve were a woman, he would certainly swoon. But he was a man, and Tony only asked because he had done that to everybody else in the team. Steve was the last one who hadn’t accepted the invitation to stay in Tony’s family mansion. Or the Avengers mansion, as it was also called.

Tony had been like this from that damn alien attack. He said he feels “connected” to their team. This far only connection Steve had felt had been Tony’s eyes on his “America’s ass”, as his teammates had started to call Steve’s rear end.

Almost eight months had passed after Steve woke up from his ice induced healing coma. Only half a year to him but seven decades to the world.

“This is really unpractical. Like I am your chauffeur or something. Please, move in the mansion! I will give you your own floor. Two floors!”

As if Tony wouldn’t want to take any opportunity to drive his flashy cars. He was also exaggerating about the mansion. The place was huge but there wasn’t any floors to spare.

“We could rebuilt! Think about it, Cap! All those rowdy bachelor evenings. Netflix and beer, or water for me, and for you too, you poor weird metabolism thing. You liked that Disney channel on your laptop, I know you did. You have watched Snow White five times already.”

So what. Steve had seen only a half of that movie when it had its re-run in the local theater. He had been tired, convalescing from the series of asthma attacks, and fallen asleep on a date his best friend Bucky had arranged for him. (The girl had been quite relieved, Steve could tell. A handsy weakling would have been the worst. Snoring one she could handle.) Steve had no idea the movie was so intimidating. Or so sad.

Janet van Dyne (the Wasp, another superhero and one of the original Avengers) had said Steve was a cutie. Then she asked if he had seen the Lion King. Steve hadn’t, so that was the next choice for their “meet the team” -nights. (It had been terrible. The film was even more emotional than the Snow White. Steve bawled like a baby. Who wouldn’t when little Simba was begging his dead father to wake up and finally snuggled under his lifeless paw.)

Where were... Yes, now back into the annoying, tiny sports car. Tony’s hand grabbed his arm. Steve winced, but he could proudly say he nowadays dared sudden touches without hitting or kicking anybody. The car had stopped and Steve had been ready to leave his seat, but Tony was still pulling his arm, urging him to look something via the side mirror. In the next lane there was approaching a topless car, which hosted three almost topless women.

“Oh my god. That is a dress! Or is that a bikini… oh my god! Oh my god, I’m in love...”

Tony was blowing them kisses. The women laughed and waved, and then the traffic lights changed and their car moved forward.

“Awww, Cap! You didn’t even look”, Tony pouted as Steve reached for the door handle. He was sure the team had been betting on who would make Captain blush the hardest. What bundle of half naked flesh or intimate questions or rude gestures would offend his grandpa sensibilities so much that he would start babbling out his disapproval.

Well, tough shit. That one bet they would all lose.

Their problem was they knew about Steve’s time and age only from the old movies. Old Hollywood censored movies, where people acted nice and proper. Maybe they were telling partly the truth if you were wealthy and white, living in a traditional family. But Steve was born in the wrong side of the tracks, as they still said, to an unmarried woman. Low class people didn’t act all noble like they did in the Dickens novels. They had their shiny moments, but usually not so much. They were hungry and tired and overall drunk or sick or pissed off most of the time. Steve had been well educated in all things not so nice and proper from the early age, the studies he had continued in the army among other young, rambunctious, and restless men.

His teammates still tried to unnerve him, though. At least Tony did. The look at their faces had been priceless when Steve had called them out on their game for the first time.

It had been after the alien attack, when they were honing their battle tactics in Tony’s fancy training room. For a moment it had felt like sparring with his Commandos. He felt a sudden, skin deep camaraderie with the team, and he had relaxed, let it go.

It was on Natasha, actually. She was the one who started complaining he was not doing things right. That he was holding back. So he gave it to her hard. She was one hell of a tough lady, but she had no special powers. The end result was predictable. She had nice moves, but surprise, surprise, so had Steve. And he had more power to back them off.

 _You_ _wanted a real_ _fucking_ _practice!_ Steve had shouted as Natasha collected herself from the gym floor. _Move_ _your big_ _Russki_ _ass,_ _or_ _goddammit_ _, I will come there and kick the hell out of your fucking cunt until you’_ _re able to_ _attack me again!_

Oh, those looks. Everything stopped, or almost. (Not Thor. But he was an alien prince who had no reference what the others were so anxious about.) But in his defense this was nothing new. Steve had not been led astray by TV or Internet or other modern machinations; he had always been a potty mouth when fueled with adrenaline. And it was all on Steve, Captain Rogers was the squeaky clean one. The war-time government had nurtured his public image diligently with their comic books and posters and news reels, until Captain America was so pristine and shiny, he was grueling to look at without the sunglasses on.

It was no wonder the Avengers found the exception a hilarious surprise. After that it was a competition about the best way to get his drill sergeant barking. (He made sure to use his most rude and old-fashioned swearing words.) Finally their attempts went so over the top that Steve had to blow the whistle. It had been a great bonding experience for the team, but it also took almost three weeks until they all managed to take their job seriously again. Only Barton (Hawkeye) never did, but everybody had accepted him as an official prankster of the team.

So the Mansion was a big no-no for Steve for many different reasons. He wasn’t nevertheless homeless per se, and the SHIELD quarters wasn’t such a dump Tony pretended them to be. Their NYC main compound was actually a nice place to put his suitcase down. Surrounded by uniformed people who obviously knew what they were doing, was a little like living and acting with his old team. It all made him feel less homesick.

Outside the building looked like an ordinary office block. Seeing the power-suited men and woman walking in and out of the doors, Steve had felt like he should bring them coffee or something. To pretend to be a deliver boy to blend better in.

After the door and the lobby it was a different tale. If one had a certain innocent-looking credit card and the finger and retinal scans matched, he or she could ride the elevator to the underground floors. Steve was getting there, walking the corridor to his lodgings, as Agent Willard advanced towards him.

“Director Fury wants to talk, Cap”, she said. “He is waiting for you in the meeting room D308.”

She was wearing the standard BNTU (as Steve called it: the Black Needlessly Tight Uniform.) It didn’t help that she came really close, putting her shoulders back and pushing forward with her undeniably bounteous assets.

These peoples and their clothes! Steve would probably never get used to this new way to cover oneself. And men’s fashion was as bad. Pants so tight they showed your intimate areas to everybody.

Natasha had taken him on a shopping spree and that had been pure horror. Damned skinny jeans. Never in his life had he been in anything so uncomfortable, and he at least had been drowning inside an airplane cockpit.

Did Willard just winked at him? Steve huffed in his mind. What a stupid question. Of course she did.

Steve watched her going from the corner of his eye. Steve was six feet two inches tall man, who could break her like a twig with his little fingers. He shouldn’t feel intimidated by her sexual advances, and still he kind of was. Three generations of people had kept pin-up posters of Captain on their walls, hard not to be intimidated by _that_.

It was much the same as during the war. Steve remembered that strange restlessness, strict moral rules starting to unravel as nobody wanted to die as a virgin. Now there were so many kinds of efficient conceptions that not even the fear of hellfire or the deep social shame helped women to keep their knees together. (That advice hadn’t done much for his ma either, had it?)

As the novelty wore off, most of the SHIELD agents had started acting more professional again. Most of his admirers were satisfied by staring at him in a silent awe when he came to the shooting range or the locker room, but there were still those other kind of days. Steve didn’t appreciate to feel like the last candy bar in a shop full of greedy kids.

Steve had been asked to have a drink. Never mind that. Apparently, people still went to the movies on a date, he had been asked to do that also. Most of the rest was familiar, Steve and his contemporaries had been just more discreet about it. So far a dozen women had been ready to have any kind of intimacy with him right away, literally, maybe in the nearest empty meeting room or broom closet.

There had been a few men in that queue too. The demolition guy from Rumlow’s black ops team had been batting his eyelashes at him, asking him out to a concert or to a bar, but Steve suspected he was only joking to amuse his friends. He hoped he was, because there was always a possibility that all those male admirers were a test, ordered for him by Director Fury, and that Steve didn’t want to think about.

He entered the meeting room. Director was waiting for him in his usual place, in the chair in front of the door. Their first joined mission had started from this very same room. It had been five months ago. Captain and his Avengers (Don’t call them yours! They are not Commandos!) had battled against aliens. (Aliens! Like beings who will come to Earth from outer space!)

The aliens had been called the Skrulls. They were technologically advanced, green-skinned shapeshifters, who acted as if conquering of the other worlds was a thing to do during this season. It had been a lonely scout ship. They had won the Skrulls easily, and almost without any major incidents. There had been a nasty situation when one of the aliens had changed itself into Steve and Thor had almost clobbered him with his hammer before realizing his mistake.

That had been only a tap, but it gave him a splitting headache. Steve had grabbed the stupid thing out of Thor’s hand and thrown it away.

He hadn’t thought it would be such a big deal. The magic in the hammer would make it come back if Thor called it, and it wasn’t like the Asgardian hadn’t been able to defend himself by any other means. But for some reason, the Hammergate (as Tony called it) was still a hot topic every time Steve visited the mansion.

Stupid Thor. Stupid green aliens. Better to concentrate on other things. Like these files Fury was showing him. (Stupid paper files because for some reason they thought Steve wouldn’t be able to handle a tablet like everybody else.)

No aliens this time, thank God. But… _What the hell?_

“Zemo.”

Steve jerked. That was a name he had preferred to hear never again. Baron Heinrich Zemo had been a scientific genius and German’s number one weapon designer. But Baron was dead. Steve and the Commandos had made sure of it. One of their last missions together had been to storm the castle Zemo.

“That’s right, you weren’t available when the team fought the Masters of Evil last time”, Fury mused. “Their current leader is Baron Helmut Zemo, the great grandson of your old nemesis. Nothing much is known of his family matters, except he is supposed to be the commander of Hydra West like his great grandfather was during the WWII. He is rumored to be the right hand man of Red Skull himself, and the only one that old maniac really listens to.”

Hydra. Seventy years and that vile thing still raised its ugly heads.

It had been so unfair to hear Red Skull existed. Hydra’s version of the super serum had guaranteed that Nazi scum a long youth while everybody Steve had known (only a few months ago!) were dead or dying of old age.

Steve would have to meet a man whose family member he had killed in the battle. Not a treat. There would be blood, sweat and tears, maybe his, Steve realized as he read a list of things Commander Zemo had achieved in his long career of terrorism and horror.

Fury stared at him like expecting a reaction. There was no actual pictures of Zemo’s face in those papers. Steve wondered if that was on purpose, to make the man more villain-like. To dehumanize him, preparing Steve to… something. Assassination strike, perhaps?

That one failed. These pictures of the Hydra commander were endearing, making him look like a kid playing a king in a park theater. It wouldn’t prevent Steve to do his duty, of course. Never had before.

“Something funny, soldier?” Fury asked raising his eyebrow.

Zemo had a purple sock-like thing over his whole head. He also had some kind of golden crown and his shoulder pads were lined with ermine.

“He is quite colorful compared with the standard black combat gear criminals”, Steve said putting pictures away.

Fury nodded. “A regular drama queen, that one.”

“What about him? What is he planning now that got SHIELD’s attention?”

“We suspect he is co-operating with Victor von Doom. Do you recognize the name?”

Von Doom was a magic user and robot enthusiastic, the sovereign ruler of his own country. The place was called Latveria, and it was a small piece of land surrounded by Hungary, Serbia and Romania. (Steve had studied SHIELD’s Big Book of Evil-Doers.)

He started to understand Fury’s concern. Maybe Zemo and Doom were contemplating a multinational terrorist attack. Was their next mission to search and arrest (eliminate?) the Hydra scum? Too bad that Doom character had a diplomatic immunity.

“Mr. Zemo is in our custody. What I need is you to interrogate him. To find out his plans.”

“Sir”, Steve started. He really didn’t like that idea. “I’m just a soldier, I’m not used to intelligence stuff… and Peggy Carter is more than capable interrogator. Why don’t you let her...”

Maybe it had been all this talk about Zemo. A name from the past. Fury gave Steve time to collect his wits again while the longing for the things and people long gone rushed over him as hard as a tidal wave. He felt suffocating again. As if he had never gotten out of his watery grave.

*

This was a bad idea, Fury thought. A terrible idea, but they had tried everything else.

By looking at his tablet, he could be reading results of countless tests the SHIELD doctors had done to their guest. In these matters the first priority was to prevent a suicide strike. As the report stated, no bio hazards, explosives or toxins had been found.

Their second concern was to prevent the prisoner to kill himself, which made them check all the possibilities from mind wipes to classic cyanide teeth. That also came up with nothing, and made them to move on to the next level of tests. Those were to make sure they were dealing with a real Helmut Zemo. There was no trace of surgical operations or magical clamor to change his facial features, and his DNA test proved positive. He wasn’t a Skrull duplicate either, so if they weren’t dealing with a human mutant who could change his or herself at the cellular lever, this Zemo was a real thing.

Fury was surprised to find out Helmut Zemo was an organic guy. Knowing the Hydra’s enthusiasm with all things supreme, he hadn’t really expected something like that, but there were no metal or plastic appendixes in their prisoner’s body. Not even mutated biological tissue was found. Nothing unusual. Nothing extra. Just a man in his early thirties. Normal hearing and sight. Normal reflexes. No diseases.

Nothing more menacing than a bleeding nose. No snot, his nose was bleeding blood, but it had stopped without outside operations. That made doctors briefly suspect an aneurysm or a brain tumor, which would have explained his strange behavior, but scans had come back clean.

Nothing. They were going bonkers trying to figure out a reason why Zemo had been sitting in the exhibition room of the Met, looking at some painting and ignoring his runny nose.

It’s not unusual that people are lost in thought at the art gallery. Usually they don’t do that in a full combat gear, sitting on the floor next to their assault rifles. That was when the museum staff had evacuated the building and NYPD had sent their SWAT team and a negotiator. The SHIELD computers made a routine scan from their camera footage. That had made alarms blink red as facial recognition program identified the detained man as Helmut Zemo, a known member of the terrorist organization Hydra.

The only good thing in the situation was that Zemo’s identity was not widely known among the great public. Who knows what could have happened, if some police officer had recognized the man and the news had told about his arrest. Zemo didn’t move until the police officers started moving him. He didn’t offer any resistance as they took him to the patrol car.

Fury had sent two agents to collect Zemo from the police custody. The story run that their poor veteran uncle had gone missing from the mental institution in Arizona, where he had been treated because of his severe PTSD. They had some falsified documentation to prove his rifle was in fact legal, and the agents got that with them also.

All this time Commander Zemo of Hydra West sat in his cell like a statue made of salt. During the numerous tests SHIELD had made to him, there were a few times he seemed to wake up, but those moments were short and lacked obvious questions. Zemo didn’t demand to know where he was or how he got there. What the hell they thought they were doing to him.

Fury took that as a sign Zemo knew exactly where he was and what was happening around him. Or he didn’t know and he didn’t care. Fury couldn’t decide which of the two possibilities made him more apprehensive.

Commander Zemo in SHIELD’s custody. What did that mean? New plans at least.

Fury’s choice of action included mostly the man sitting in front of him in the meeting room. Captain was the only one with any personal experience with Zemo’s dynasty of Evil.

Rogers didn’t seem too pleased with this course of events. The man acted like a skittish horse at the best of times, but right now he also felt pissed off for some reason. He was polite about it, of course. All polite smiles, but his eyes told Fury a different story. They were as hard and calculating as the day the Sleeping Beauty had woken up from his long, icy slumber and found himself surrounded by Fury’s men which he had thought were Hydra agents in disguise.

Dear Captain didn’t trust him. That was very perspective of him, even if the situation made the little boy inside Fury more than a bit sad. When Fury was a kid, Captain America had been the next best thing after Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard. (A real-life Errol Flynn adventurer!)

If Rogers hadn’t been as aloof with Coulson and his fanboy enthusiasm, Fury would have suspected there were some attitudes more typical for the begone era. Not that he had taken offense when Rogers had called him a Negro. Of course he wasn’t. Not at all. No way. Fury had just… how to put it. He had been afraid Rogers would say something else, maybe some other n-word, and then Fury would have to accidentally slap the living daylights out of the military legend. Or put him to wash toilets with a broken toothbrush. Whichever came to his mind first.

He asked Romanoff to make Rogers feel more at ease. To loose a little. That made Fury wonder if he had been Santa Claus in some of his previous lives, because he seemed to have a sack full of crappy ideas.

Loose Rogers was not. The first months after his resurrection, he kept a frigid garrison timetable. You could have checked your watch as Rogers woke up, took a dump, and went to his morning run. He spent all his time in his room or the gym or in the practices with the team. Sometimes he went berserk and visited the City Library or sat on a park bench or in a cafe, but mostly Rogers just trained or read. Rogers was not exactly a meta human, and his body needed every day several hours of intensive training to keep him in his excellent condition. This all grew old really fast, and Fury’s list of volunteers to baby-sit their dear Captain diminished after the first hectic weeks of ogling mixed hero worshiping. Finally the agents ordered to watch Rogers had to be changed every few days or they became inattentive out of pure boredom.

Fury had hoped Rogers would find more contacts outside the Avengers and the agents, to adjust himself better to the modern world. He had asked Romanoff to help Rogers to date, which had been another fine present from his bottomless looking sack of idiocy.

It had been reported by Romanoff that Rogers found the modern dating amoral and highly disrespectful towards the honor of ladies. Not that he had said so in so many words, the Boy Scout was too polite to judge them. The point was Rogers was not looking for a fiancée. He had not thought to tie the knot in the near future while he was still adjusting to his new life. Aka he had no reason to date and lead some hopeful woman on.

Always a good Catholic boy, then. All right. Everybody could keep their blue balls as they were, it wasn’t skin off Fury’s nose. And in spite of these little bumps, everything had gone more smoothly than Fury had dreamed. The team's first big mission with Captain America had been a great success, the green, shape-shifting alien invaders hadn’t made Rogers bat an eye. Like every good soldier, Captain Rogers seemed to adjust fluidly to his circumstances. It wasn’t like Fury hadn’t more crucial issues to consider. Maybe it was better he listened to Romanoff and let Rogers integrate himself at his own pace.

Public opinion about the Avengers had started looking better after Captain joined their ranks. There was this far only one PR-related catastrophe by Rogers, thanks to that damn potty mouth of his. The people loved the legend made alive, and Smithsonian museum had opened a huge exhibition about his life and heroic adventures.

Fury was taking notice as Rogers observed the prisoner through the one-way class door. Rogers seemed a tad disappointed. It could be because Zemo looked hardly interesting; he didn’t have his flashy crown on, only a standard issue white SHIELD T-shirt and grey sweatpants. He was a few inches shorter than Rogers. Muscular, but not overly much. A swimmer’s body, as they say. Light hair and skin, like a good Aryan (except Aryan was a language and cultural group living in the area including late Persia. Those German anthropologists missed that one badly.) His face was decorated with an aquiline nose which had been broken more than a few times. Zemo had also collected a blotch of a scar tissue on his right cheekbone. The skin there looked like somebody had tried to peel it off from his face with a blunt knife.

Rogers didn’t seem to be intimidated by the man or his looks. That was only natural, he must have met more severe damages in the battlefield.

“He can’t see or hear you”, Fury said and touched the panel next to the door. “This one allows us to hear him.”

Zemo seemed to know what had been done. He started talking immediately, as if being afraid Fury would turn the microphone off again. “I know you are there, Fury”, his familiar, heavily accented drawl said. “I got this sense of you, you know. It’s strange, though. Every time you come around, I expect you to be a white guy.”

“Nazi bastard”, the agent watching the door mumbled. Fury marked the woman. Her unprofessional attitude could turn out to be a problem.

“He is all yours”, Fury nodded to Captain. “You can set your own timetable. Report only to me and do that right after you have a meeting with him.”


	2. Captain Has Left the Building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve eludes Fury big time, while Tony Stark does the same to his common sense.

Steve made careful preparations before his first meeting with Hydra Commander. It was no use to try pass as a civilian. His true identity was well known to public and a person like Helmut Zemo would recognize him right away. Steve hoped his official stars and stripes would make the situation easier, maybe for both of them. The lines were not drawn in the sand, they were engraved deep into the metal. Archenemy and his nemesis. Hydra and SHIELD. Commander Zemo and Captain America.

The guard had made Zemo to sit on the chair and chained his hands to the table. There was no biting drawl like Steve had heard at the cell door. Zemo’s voice was softer. Like dreamy. What was eerie, the strong German accent was now absent. The guy’s speech sounded bland without it.

“I heard SHIELD resurrected you. I thought you would be a clone, but it’s the real you, isn’t it? I can see you’re in two minds about me, Captain. Well, our first and only meeting was too dramatic, left a bad taste into the mouth. That was a joke, you know. I have never liked the taste of blood. Do you remember it, Captain? When you killed me? It was so messy, I feel I should offer you an apology for all your trouble.”

All right. This was unexpected. And not to mention more than little disturbing.

Steve’s carefully crafted questions seemed to fly out of the window. Zemo wanted to play the loony card? Steve could play a forbearing hospital warden, it was not like Fury had given him a time limit. Sooner or later Zemo would get bored and start talking. Or stay mute, if that was his game.

Steve had thought this a lot. He was convinced he was not Fury’s first choice for the job, he was only sitting here because a better man (or a woman) had failed. Fury had no high hopes about this discussion, it was something for Captain to do between terrorist threats and alien attacks (there had been about two incidents per month, not that Steve hoped for more, but come on! Who studied to be a fireman to sit on his hands at the fire station?)

Nevertheless, a shiver of foreboding went down his spine. “You seem to be very much alive for a dead man”, he said. (Steve was terrible at puns, he had been told so time and again by his late best friend Bucky.) It was the nerves, Zemo’s water-colored eyes rattled him, they hold such a conviction. Like Zemo’s statement had been an absolute truth (which it couldn’t be, because they would have needed a time machine and some very complicated parallel universe theories by Dr. Reed Richards).

He was suddenly annoyed. Zemo’s play-acting was giving him a headache. Or maybe it was the air in the room. It felt stuffy for some reason. There was a short, stabbing pain behind his left eye, but fortunately that was gone as soon as it came. For something to do, he grabbed Zemo’s file from the table and browsed it for a while.

The art museum was searched thoroughly for the bombs. The dogs or SHIELD’s scifi equipments didn’t find anything, but it didn’t prove there couldn’t be something. Maybe he should start from that.

“You were at the museum. What were you looking for?”

Zemo tilted his head. Steve was sure he wouldn’t get an answer. He almost boggled when the lazy dreamy voice started talking again.

“Nothing much, Captain. I was searching for the torso of the high general.”

Maybe he didn’t hear that right. It could be some modern lingo Steve had no comprehension of. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, that’s a statue. From 4th century B.C.”

That didn’t make things any clearer.

“That is… quite old. Why were you looking for him?”

“He is in a half.” Zemo drew an imaginary line from the left side of his neck down to right side of his pelvis. “I have felt like that so long.”

“Felt what?” Steve wondered.

“Maybe he could…” Zemo hesitated. “I thought we could make ourselves whole. Together. But I couldn’t find him. Then I saw this woman.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know. But she looked like my mother. I called her, but she didn’t turn around. As if… she didn’t want to see me… at all.”

She couldn’t, could she? Because she was a painting the police had found Zemo staring at.

Steve hesitated. Was this really a game or was Zemo having a mental breakdown? Steve was not a doctor, he wouldn’t know. Zemo had sounded normal when Steve and Fury checked on him outside his prison cell.

“Do you feel well?” he asked, because – you know – Mr. nice guy.

“I feel a little thirsty... Why do you ask?”

“Your nose is bleeding”, Steve noticed. It had started to do that while Zemo talked. “I’ll give you a tissue. Do you want some water?”

Zemo nodded. Steve stood up and collected a water bottle from the side table, found some tissues and gave them to Zemo.

It appeared a chain of the cuffs was too short. Zemo couldn’t reach his nose or raise the bottle on his lips if he didn’t lay his head on the table.

“Sorry about that”, Steve said. “Let me.”

He put three tissues on top of each others. The super soldier serum had conquered viruses or bacteria he had gotten from bad food or water and untended wounds, but he didn’t want to take risks with all those new and nasty things he had read about. Zemo tilted his head back, and Steve pushed tissues around his nose, when his little finger touched briefly the scars on Zemo’s cheekbone.

It wasn’t anything like an electric shock. Steve felt as he was falling. He was wafting downwards, but it wasn’t scary. He had wings and he was going down lazy circles, an albatross hovering in the air current.

He stood too close. He should probably took his hand away from Zemo’s face. Why couldn’t he pull his hand away? But… Somehow…

It just felt as if nothing had been so right before. The feeling intensified, until the room, Zemo, everything started to fade. The golden, warm arrows of understanding pierced Steve’s heart, his very soul. This could be the nirvana as the Buddhism described it. This was like a message from God’s own hand, a revelation, which was usually reserved for prophets or saints. A satisfaction so deep run through his veins it made him gasp aloud. For a while he probably looked like the marble statue of Saint Teresa in her rapture. Still some tiny sane part of Steve was screaming, begging him to wake up. To rush out of the room, to raise the alarm, to call Fury. He ignored it.

“I would like to find him. The high general.”

Steve noticed he had nodded. “I will help you to look.” The strange vertigo feeling intensified. His heart expanded until it felt the organ was going to burst. He took keys and opened Zemo’s handcuffs. Then he realized he couldn’t take Zemo outside as long as the man was dressed in the prison gear.

“Wait”, he said. “I’ll get you something to wear.”

Steve knew where the supply depot was located and was going to rush there right away. But then he remembered the guard at the door. He was the same size as Zemo, an average tall man.

A mischievous smile started playing on his lips. He made an excuse and asked the guard inside and then he just knocked him unconscious. As Zemo changed his clothes, Steve made a nice package of the rest.

The whole operation took less than three minutes. Steve was making sure the bound man was breathing properly as he felt something running along his cheek. It tickled. He wiped it off and his fingers came out red. That was odd. He didn’t usually have nosebleeds.

“I have a safe house near by”, Zemo explained. “We can change these clothes and leave the guns there. After dealing with my mess, I don’t think the museum staff wants to see any military personnel in their near future.”

Steve wiped his nose. Every time Zemo gave him that muted smirk, Steve felt this urge to push him against the wall, to hit or kiss him, hard to decide. But that would be for later. He should ask Zemo which one he would prefer. Maybe make a game of it.

It was all so clear now. A joy bubbled inside of Steve. It was as if living in the brightest day in summer and eating the fluffiest of marshmallows while laughing with his friends. Funny, how he had a moment ago felt so lost. So alone and sad. A glorified mummy of the patriotic spirit.

“Come on”, Zemo smirked, as they were out of the building and not in a range of its cameras. “Let’s go, race you there!”

*

Fury looked at the agent standing in front of him. The man was visibly stressed, and an unrelenting stare from Fury’s only eye didn’t help his situation. This was the third one in the row, and Fury was almost sure what the agent would say, it would be the same sentence than the other two had stuttered after this same line of questioning.

_But… It was Captain._

It was Captain. Of course it was. Who else could have walked out from the SHIELD compound with a high priority prisoner without anybody asking after his authorization?

Fury let the agent return to his work. The only other person in the room was now a red-haired woman staring at the monitor. Only a light upturn of her brow showed her surprise about the scene before her on the screen, and Fury knew that was on purpose. Natasha Romanoff wanted to show how bizarre she found the events and the doings of her colleagues. At the same time, it was maybe a little barb against Fury himself.

“Romanoff, an opinion.”

“None yet, Director. For some reason Rogers has gone rogue. Or…”

“Or?”

She rolled words in her mouth before she spat them out. Her tone was neutral, but Fury could tell that thinking the second option agitated her almost as much as a possibility that for some reason or other Captain America had turned traitor. “Rogers could have been programmed by Hydra. He was their prisoner once, even if that was a short period of time. Maybe they managed to do something to him. Their plan, whatever it was, failed when his plane surged into the sea. But after meeting Zemo…”

Romanoff shrugged her shoulders. “You know as well as I do there could be any kind of triggers: sounds, words, signs, colors. Maybe the only meaning of Zemo’s strange behavior was to get close to Captain and activate his old programming.”

The walking and talking American apple pie brainwashed by Hydra. What a nightmare.

“Rogers shut the cameras down after giving Zemo a tissue. The agents in monitor duty presumed Rogers had stopped the interview. The agent at the door was very lucky Rogers knows where to hit and how to make neat packages. He could have as easily just killed the guy to make sure he doesn’t get off from his restrainers and raise the alarm.”

Rogers and Zemo had been gone almost five hours before anybody started suspecting something wasn’t right. The guard in the cell wing had changed. He had been told Rogers was interrogating the prisoner. When Rogers and Zemo wasn’t back the guards had thought Rogers had used more his fists than his words, and Zemo had been taken to the sick bay.

A nice chain of unprofessional behavior, incompetence, and cheer rotten luck. Fury left the agents to track surveillance cameras. He returned to his office and called Stark.

“It’s about Rogers”, he said as it seemed Stark would screen his call. “Stark, pick up. He needs your help.”

He could hear people talking, a ripple of conversation which sounded too informal for a company meeting. Tableware clinked. Stark was in the restaurant.

“What happened”, Stark said without greeting. “Is he hurt? God, I swear Fury! I told you he was not ready for your shady missions. He has no concept what modern technology is capable of. If he is…”

“He’s unharmed. Get your ass down here. I need you to see a recording, and there are things we need to discuss face to face.”

Stark arrived twenty minute later. His chauffeur had really floored it. “No Iron Man?” Fury confirmed.

“I can’t exactly hide the armor under my suit like Spider-Man does with his onesie”, Stark explained. “I have to develop something, maybe some remote control thing… What was it you wanted to show me?”

Fury observed Stark as he was watching the recording, and told him what they presumed had happened, and what SHIELD was doing about it. Stark was as dumbfounded as Romanoff but he didn’t care to cover his feelings.

“What… the unbelievable… fuck”, Stark stammered. “You can’t hunt him down like he were fucking Unabomber! Fury, it’s Captain!”

Fury promised to himself he would clock the next man or woman who uttered that idiotic phrase. He tried to keep his sarcasm from slicing any actual wound into Stark as he continued:

“Be that as it may, but don’t you think it would be a tad dangerous for Rogers to run rampant with a known member of a terrorist organization? _In a world he knows nothing about_ _and has no interest to_ _integrate_ _himself_ _in_ _to_ , as you have tirelessly highlighted to me?”

“Well, the guy can make one hell of a mean coffee order”, Stark mumbled. “He always asks extra syrup, whipped cream, and those little chocolate hearts… A couple of those sugar bombs and never mind his weird metabolism, the calories would keep him going for days. No need to be afraid he would starve or something.”

“Yes, and that is a part of our problem. Zemo is not exactly lacking resources. They could be anywhere already. We have to get inside Rogers’s head, to ask ourselves _what the hell_ _was_ _he thinking?”_

Fury was proud there were no signs of his spittle on Stark’s face. “Did Rogers feel disappointed? Disillusioned?” he continued with more calm. “Did he utter any doubts about the Avengers Initiative or SHIELD I should know about? Anything that would make it easier for Zemo to manipulate him?”

“I don’t like your way of thinking, Fury. It is obvious Zemo did some Hydra whammy to him. There is no way Captain has any part in this.”

“Is it? Maybe not Captain, but how about Rogers? You should know the guy as you have become so close friends.”

“Yeah, no progress in that department, but it is not because of my lack of trying”, Stark exclaimed, not noticing the burn. “You know me, Fury. I didn’t like him first, but then I realized it was just… It’s not his fault he was for my dad the son he never had. If we go all psychological… The guy is from the 40s, you would think he had issues against everything. He is so straight-laced boy scout I thought he is judging me behind those silent and sad smiles of his, but it was nothing. He is really so nice a person, and I mean nice. Did I say nice already? Have you looked at him, Fury? I mean, really looked at him? That glorious ass alone makes it really hard to stay mad at him for long. You know, right now Deadpool would repeat “hard” and then giggle in that endearing and psychotic way of his.”

“Nervous, Stark?” Fury interrupted Stark’s word vomit which was going absolutely nowhere. “You always start babbling when there are things you don’t want to think about”, he continued, realizing something he hadn’t first noticed. “And when you don’t want to think about… no pills, that would have made you aggressive… you snorted coke on your way here, didn’t you?”

“You are a director of a spy organization and you ask me”, Stark laughed. “And why didn’t you put a GPS chip under Rogers’s skin as I suggested? You could have picked him up and taken him home like a big, sexy stray doggy he is.”

“I did use a chip.” Fury tapped his shoulder blade. “It was right there. Zemo compromised one of his safe houses to get rid of their trackers.”

“Well, next time, put it somewhere else. Some place harder to find. For example into his liver? Or the heart? His heart! Then we could be heart-broken guys together.”

Stark rubbed absentmindedly his chest. For a moment he seemed sobering up, but then he gave Fury a leering, lopsided smirk which was probably meant to make him look rakish and intriguing. Fury rushed forwards and grabbed Stark’s jaw to shut him up. “You go home and rest, Stark. That brain of yours is no use for anybody in your condition. And when you go consider what I just told you, if you’re able to do that while swelling in your childish sibling rivalry.”

Fury let Stark go. “It’s not that childish”, Stark pouted.

“Tony, for once in your life...” Fury sighed, shaking his head. “You always start that poor little rich boy act when you’re drunk or high. I’m really not in the mood right now. And when you interact with your teammates… For future reference, you’re a co-leader of the Avengers. Act like one! Maybe you really should have thought twice before you tried your playboy tricks on Rogers. What if Rogers’s morals were so hurt he had to make a drastic move to get away from us? Zemo noticed his confusion and offered him a way back to his old life. The gore and glory of the battlefield without drunken hos groping his ass any time he turns his back.”

“I’m not...”

“Intoxicated? Or a ho?”

Stark had to think that one for a while. “I’m rich, I don’t need the money.”


	3. Nefarious Plans Come To Fruition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Fury and his agents are studying more art, Steve resides with a man whose family member he killed seventy years ago.

It had been five days. No trace of Captain. Steve, Fury had to remind himself.

Fury was first to admit he had made mistakes. He imagined Rogers's confusion as Zemo showed him a tracker Fury had ordered to put in him. The tracker was a necessity, the chip would have helped them to find Rogers if something happened and he got lost or hurt and was in need of quick backup. Fury knew that, but he should have told about it to Rogers. God only knows what the man was thinking about them right now. If they could have done that kind of operation without his permission, what else had they be doing to him after they pulled him from the ocean? Did they take his blood or tissue for some wacky science experiments? After all the pulp novels that guy had read during the wartime, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he suspected Fury and the SHIELD were growing an army of Steve-looking super soldiers from his sperm samples.

They had let Rogers down and the guy had escaped what he thought was a hot place straight into the frying pan. Fury didn’t want to imagine what Hydra could be planning for Captain. It had been days already, Rogers could be harvested of his organs and then tortured just for the fun of it. They would probably make it an Internet spectacle of the century, and Rogers would realize he had been saved from the ice only to have his head placed like a hunting trophy on the wall of Red Skull’s private library.

No, Fury thought. No matter how badly Rogers would think they had let him down, he would not trust Zemo or Hydra, not if he was in his right mind. But was he in his right mind, that was the million dollar question. And there was still the third option to consider. It could be that Rogers had been playing a game of his own all along, something that would leave both SHIELD and Hydra coughing in his dust.

“Director! We got a match!”

Fury grabbed his tablet. “Put it through, Agent Sanders. What is it?” he asked, tapping his earpiece with impatient fingers as the video started showing him a crowd of people. In the forefront a woman was talking into her microphone.

“It’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sir. They put this video on their YouTube channel ten minutes ago. Look at 1:57.”

The woman was still talking, introducing the museum’s new exhibition, but Agent Sanders didn’t mean Fury to look at her but two men in the background. Two tall and blond men, of whom one was a bit taller and more golden blond than the other.

Rogers and Zemo, Fury wondered. Both were in their civilian clothes, Rogers was wearing a bomber jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap, and Zemo was dressed as his jock twin. But what the hell were they doing?

“The program is syncing their speech right now. Rogers is turned away from the camera, and we can get only Zemo’s side of the conversation, but he is talking about Monet. Sir.”

“Monet… who?”

“It’s about that painting in front of them, sir. The artist is Claude Monet, he is a French painter from 19th century, and one of the founders of Impressionism. Zemo is describing the artist’s use of brush as a way to analyze the colors… Sir.”

Fury pushed his eyes close and breathed, very carefully, for a few seconds.

“Do we have a connection to the museum’s surveillance system? When did that happen?”

“Five days ago, sir. Approximately two and half hours after Rogers went AWOL.”

“Check the security footage. All of them.”

“Doing that already, sir.” Some twenty minutes later, Agent Sanders told him a depressing, but not so unexpected result of her search: “They visited several gallery rooms together, conversed about the paintings, and are finally seen to leave the building via the front door.”

“Great”, Fury mumbled. “Rogers releases Zemo only to haul him back to the Met and to his interrupted art tour.”

“It seems to be so, sir.”

“That was a rhetoric speech, Agent Sanders.”

“Sorry, sir.”

*

Fury’s gut was telling him the truth. Steve was in trouble. He was out of his depth, had no way to counter a lighting fast attack. He stepped back, tried to turn, but he was like an ant stuck in honey. Big, clumsy ant who was going to have his ass handed to him in a matter of minutes.

His adversary followed his movement. The strike in his arm was precise and clean, it didn’t draw blood (this time) which was oddly deepening the humiliation. That kind of move told them both Zemo wasn’t considering Steve a worthy opponent, maybe not even opponent at all. Steve was a baby with a fig. A toddler wobbling around. Three steps. Four. Zemo’s fluid movements were like dancing (Steve was sure Zemo would be a great dancer), and then it was over like it had been four times before, when he had ended up Zemo’s blade on his throat or his stomach. (Or besides his balls.)

Steve curbed his desire to throw his sword away and have a temper tantrum right there and then, in the middle of his host’s well-equipped gym. He walked over the floor and put his sword (calmly!) in the rack while Zemo watched his silent fuming with an amused smirk.

“I really hate fencing”, Steve whined, and now his opponent laughed aloud.

“You are just crap at it”, Zemo said, putting his own weapon away and pausing at the cabinet door. “Maybe you could do better with a scimitar?”

“Well, let’s say maybe not”, Steve snorted. “I can’t handle even that one… And the blades looks totally different. Wouldn’t a scimitar require a different technique than a straight sword?”

“Very good!” Zemo sounded impressed which consoled Steve’s wounded self-esteem. “It indeed would. You have grown fond of stabbing? It’s true that with scimitar you usually only slice and dice, that’s the secret of the most cavalry weapons. Stabbing people from the horseback would take too much power and be dangerous if your sword gets stuck in your enemy’s thick skull.”

“I know that one”, Steve mused, pointing one of the curvy blades. “There was this guy the team and I met in France, he had been in Japan before the war… he kept a similar sword with him, but he did call it with some foreign name. He said that those things would have cost a pretty penny, but he won his own by the cards.”

“It depends”, Zemo mused, taking a sword from the cabinet. “This one, for example. It is not old or valuable, and not particularly good to handle… but what’s the use to have the best equipment all the time when in reality you usually have to improvise. The name your buddy used was probably _katana_. These swords are not so exotic anymore, nowadays they are usually a sign of an amateur; you put some angry-looking half mask on your face and fancy yourself a ninja warrior. A waste of good ammo, those ones. But as you said… enough!” Zemo exclaimed. He took a few steps back from Steve and did a fast and powerful looking sword form ( _kata_ , he called it) before putting the weapon back into the cabinet. “Would you like to hit the showers, or should we have a few rounds over there?”

Oh that smirk! It really knew what it was doing, piercing Steve’s heart and dipping into his groin like an Olympic diver. And it hadn’t been an innuendo. Zemo had meant the ring. They put some protecting gloves and headgear on and stepped up. The gym had an actual ring with ropes, and Steve almost expected the butler would do a part time job as an announcer and a referee.

They agreed it would be anything goes. Because there was no referee, Steve had to look after himself. And Zemo of course, who had suddenly dropped to the duckling level of ineptitude. The guy had no self-protection instincts, Steve noticed after the third or fourth straight hit which should have been easy enough to fend off. Even Barton (the Hawkeye), who was the worst of the lot when it came to hand-to-hand combat, had more sense in his head.

“Is this an act?” he asked, ready to be pissed off. “You don’t have to pretend to be an idiot just because I can’t manage with your fancy blades. If you don’t want to take this seriously there is no point to do anything.”

Zemo sucked his lower lip. It was not bleeding, but it would be puffy tomorrow. Steve started to pull his protection gear off when he felt a kick on his leg. It wasn’t the back of his knee which (in theory) would have made his leg buckle. Steve made a halfhearted counter-offensive and felt a thump in his feet as Zemo dropped face first onto the mat.

Oh damn! Zemo hadn’t been joking, he really couldn’t handle even the most basic moves. “Sorry!” Steve exclaimed, hoping he hadn’t broken Zemo’s nose. “I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

“Higher in the food chain, more the desk jockey.”

“Well, you’re a baron, not a ruffian”, Steve said as Zemo got himself in a sitting position and started slowly and carefully stand up. “You should do that gentleman stuff… with your sword, I mean. Like a musketeer.”

“You say.” Zemo started his customary smirk, but stopped when it stretched too much his hurt lip. “My ancestor didn’t get this title because he could talk about arts or play piano.”

“You can play then?” Steve had seen a black grand piano as Zemo gave him a tour in the castle. He had thought it was Zemo’s late mother’s, in movies fancy ladies always played some instrument or other.

“I play very poorly. As I paint… but you know all about that.”

“They are not so bad.”

“Rogers”, Zemo laughed. “They are very bad. When I asked you here to look at my works, it was all the ruse, you know.”

Yes, Steve had known. He wasn’t born yesterday. His friend Bucky had also been keen to show his stamp collections to the ladies. They hadn’t found the high general Zemo had been looking for in the museum, but there had been some snogging afterwards. Zemo had this, let’s call it a flying vehicle, which reminded Steve of SHIELD Quinjets. They had been handsy on the back seat when Zemo had asked his question. Steve had said yes, and then they had flown to Germany. (The stealth function was very practical while considering such inconvenient things as border guards or customs.) He had again sneaked in the foreign country without a permission or a passport (done that the first time some seventy years ago!) and he still hadn’t called Tony or somebody else on his team to tell where he was and what he was doing. He knew the others worried. Steve hadn’t been farther from the SHIELD base than the Central Park or the Avengers mansion, and now he was suddenly back in Europe. On a completely different continent, he didn’t do anything halfway, did he? But every time he opened his mouth to ask Zemo to borrow him his phone, something halted him. It was as if there was an invisible wall between his mouth and brains, and after a few weak attempts, Steve had stopped trying.

He had read the SHIELD files about Zemo, and knew he was some kind of high-born. Those usually had their own mansions or castles, and Zemo wasn’t an exception. What Steve didn’t expect (even if he should have) was that he knew the place. He was familiar with these exact coordinates, knew them intimately, because that was not only his last mission with his Commandos but also the first time he had left the airplane without a parachute. (It hadn’t been voluntarily, his chute had malfunctioned and made an almost perfect Roman candle, almost being the key word. It had been a rough landing through the trees and on his shield, but by some miracle nothing was broken, sprained or perforated, and the mission continued.)

Zemo had left their vehicle in a large cave near the lake which surrounded the southern site of the castle grounds. They had hiked from there. The bridge over the hillside was as impressive as Steve remembered, even if during the last visit he had had no time for sightseeing. They hadn’t come knocking, or if they had knocked, it was with their bazookas. They had left behind quite a mess, but obviously the family had rebuilt their dwellings after the war.

He should tell Zemo. About the war. About what Steve and the Commandos had done to Zemo’s great granddad. Then he realized he was a fool. That story was in the history books Steve had read. The battle of Ritzenhofen, it was called. Of course Zemo knew his own family history. He knew Steve’s part in the demise of his relative, had always known.

Zemo knew and still, after their meal in his big and fancy dining hall, he asked Steve’s permission to court him.

Steve listened very carefully. He had never looked so diligently, but he heard or saw no duplicity. Zemo didn’t look at him with the sharp eyes of a man who was seeking revenge for the deeds done against his family honor. No sir. Steve had seen that same look on Bucky’s face every time his friend had been completely smitten by some dame.

A baron courting a kid from Brooklyn. That was a real-life fairy tale. Like the king of England who had wanted to engage a divorced American missus, Wallis Simpson. That had been a big scandal a few years before the war.

“Let’s see what they could do with this one then”, Zemo suggested.

“Alright”, Steve admitted, putting down his wine glass. He had no idea what to say about the vintage. Should he say something about it? Say something at least.

“Helmut, did I land one on your nose? It’s bleeding again.”

There was indeed a few lazy drops sliding alongside his upper lip. Zemo took a serviette to wipe them away.

“What?” Steve had to ask. Zemo’s hand had stopped in the middle of the motion.

“You”, Zemo whispered. “This… the castle? We are in Germany?”

Zemo was now staring at Steve an open-mouthed disbelieve plastered all over his face, which was slowly turning into a mask of full and utter horror. “You… you are really Captain America! What… Did we just… What the fuck is going on?”

Steve was besides him right away. “Oh god, you hurt yourself, didn’t you? I’m so sorry. Maybe you should lie down? Do I call your butler? Maybe he should call an ambulance.”

Zemo shook lowly his head. “Steve?”

“Yes, Helmut?”

Steve didn’t dare to look at Helmut, but studied the weaving of the pristine white table cloth in front of him. Why had Helmut suddenly acted towards him like Steve was a monster under this very table? Was he scared of Steve for some reason? If so, Steve didn’t want to see it ever again. But of course he had to raise his eyes sometime, Sarah Rogers hadn’t given birth to a coward. No sir. So Steve looked at Helmut and for his relief and joy, he saw only the same devotion he had seen before the incident, and maybe a few grains of embarrassment thrown into the mix.

“No ambulance. I… I think it was a blackout.”

“Blackout?”

“What they call them now… flashbacks?” Zemo hesitated. “Yes, it was just a flashback. I thought of something… And I got kind of scared. I don’t remember what it was.”

“At least your nose is not bleeding anymore. But should you...”

“Oh god, no. Sorry about the drama. I have had a few of these, let’s call them episodes, after the war.”

Which war would that be, Steve wondered. Zemo was about thirty, so it should be a recent one. He didn’t remember so minutely every conflict there had been during the last seventy years, there had been a lot. It would be nosy to ask.

He settled for helping Zemo to his bedroom. It was still early. Steve wasn’t sleepy, and Helmut had shown him a library. It had a connection to the master’s study, and Helmut had given him a permission to explore both as he liked.

Before he was able to leave, Helmut took a hold of his sleeve. He didn’t say anything for quite some time, so Steve just stood there, waiting. Finally he sat on the bed, beside Helmut’s legs and touched gently the back of his hand.

“What is it, Helmut?”

“Nothing”, Helmut said, even if Steve saw it certainly was something. “You were leaving, and… I’m not an epileptic. If you were wondering.”

Steve brushed his fingers along the frigid hand and little by little it relaxed under his ministration. “It would make no difference if you were”, he said quietly. “I’m not some old, superstitious auntie, and it’s not like we can have kids together.”

Zemo gave him a tired smirk. “That ban has been lifted decades ago. And there is now medication which helps with symptoms. I just thought to tell you if you wondered... Did I scare you?”

“Kind of”, Steve admitted, squeezing Helmut’s fingers a little harder. “I though you were hurt. That I had hurt you”, Steve corrected. A thought of hurting Helmut any way made his heart ache with despair. He bent down, wondering if now was the right moment to kiss him. Previous times the act had been initiated by Helmut. In Steve’s opinion, there was no sense to wait if he wanted something. If you waited too long a nice thing could be snatched away. Or he could die before he even got there. That would be a great shame, when wanting had never been an issue. Only thing Steve was scared of was the act itself. When they had fenced, Steve had felt like an elephant beside a gazelle. What if the same was true in bed, and Helmut found him clumsy and rough and undesirable? Steve wasn’t raised as a gentleman like Helmut who spoke English with that sophisticated but synthetic accent nobody learned anymore. It was no wonder Steve felt like home and sad like a bug every time Helmut opened his mouth. Helmut had this fancy castle, and even better manners than Sarah Rogers had imprinted in Steve (with a belt if a need arose). So, what if Helmut was like those agents, who were dazzled by Captain and his mighty deeds? What if Helmut didn’t like plain old Steve at all?

While Steve was wrestling with his self-doubt, Helmut stared at their connected hands like they were a miracle in making.

“I was married once”, he said quietly. “She died. I couldn’t do this with her. Not even this without my skin trying to crawl away to escape her touch.”

Helmut raised their hands to his lips and kissed Steve’s knuckles like some people would kiss Pope’s ring. As if it wasn’t enough, Steve, always insatiable and petty, felt a stab of envy towards that unknown, dead woman. Jealousy was an old sinful friend of his, but its lighter cousin regret wasn’t far behind. He was indeed a foul person to feel as he felt right now. Of course, who wouldn’t want to marry Helmut! Helmut deserved all the best in the world, and there were tons of better options than Steve.

“You miss her”, he stated, trying to act nonchalant about it and knowing from Helmut’s expression he was nothing but a ham. “It’s understandable. I could...”

“No! It wasn’t what I meant. It wasn’t… not like this. Our union was arranged by our parents, to produce an offspring of proper breeding. She couldn’t stand me, and I could hardly touch her.”

Steve nodded, thinking he understood perfectly what Helmut was saying. “Because she was a woman.”

“That shouldn’t have been a problem. Just took some Viagra and think about the fatherland, as the saying goes. I didn’t want to touch people, or be near them. Any people. Before you.”

Steve didn’t know what that viagra was, but it wasn’t crucial thing right now. “With touching you mean...”

“Any touching. Makes me uncomfortable. Even as brief a contact as a handshake or a hit.”

“Oh. But not me”, Steve raised his brow in a mock understanding. “That’s really flattering, if it is not only an excuse to fail so utterly in hand-to-hand combat.”

Helmut slapped his arm. “And that comment earned you a job as my personal instructor… That was the first thing I noticed about you, you know. In that SHIELD interrogation room you accidentally touched my cheekbone when you wiped my nose. It didn’t feel unsavory. I had to try it again. To hold your hand. To kiss you.”

“So what am I now, a guinea pig?”

That earned him the second slap, this time on his buttocks. It made delicious willies go along his spine. “You, mister, are Steve Rogers, and you...”

_you killed me_

The thought seemed to came from nowhere. It drowned anything Helmut was actually saying and made Steve frigid with fear. Maybe this was happening because Helmut had mentioned that brief and canceled interrogation between them. Steve shivered again and not only from lust. It was weird, those words made no more sense now than previously in the SHIELD compound. It was Helmut’s great granddad he had killed, not Helmut. He was alive. Helmut was in his arms, so soft and firm at the same time, smelling clean skin and manly musk which was already mixing with his own like an invisible caress.

Steve let out a quivering sigh and let himself get lost in that better feeling.


	4. Old-Time Jukebox Kitchen Karaoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much would a six-hundred-year-old signet ring cost on eBay? And how about Captain America’s original dog tags?

Steve was a man with a talent of persuasion. Helmut was not a slot, far from it, and he wasn’t unfit, but the time was rather early for a gym after their nightly activities, especially if your normal functions were not boosted by the super serum. It should have been a real boot camp experience, but after two hour warm-up (as Steve called it), which included mostly running and different kind of burpees, Helmut was proud his legs could still hold him upright. He didn’t have to crawl into the ring on all fours behind oblivious but tireless Steve, who after the same workout still looked and smelled like a damn fresh-cut rose.

After that first lesson (which Steve, that _sweinhund_ , called a prank) their exercises continued in a more sensible way. First daily, and after a couple of more days as his muscles got used to their new regime, they started tamping the mat twice a day.

It was perfect. Even if Steve hated fencing, and he seemed to be scared of horses. Not a hunter, that one, nor a gentleman rider either. But never mind. Steve had proven himself in the battlefield a hundred times over, and anybody telling any different would be a liar (Zemo’s relatives had scars made by him to show, if you were still in two minds about it!)

Helmut was not naive, he knew there would be cultural barriers, not so easy to ignore or gross. For example, Steve said color as Helmut preferred colour. Steve was an enthusiastic supporter of Western democracy but Helmut knew in his heart of hearts that only the enlightened oligarchy was a key to the stable and strong society. That the people nowadays called the latter a dictatorship was only propaganda of the fake news. The history was written by the winners, but let’s be honest here: that little corporal really made a mess of things the last time they tried anything world changing.

That was politics, but there were also issues on the personal level. Helmut suspected Steve had taken his promise to court him only as a simply call to have casual but enjoyable sex, like Steve was a stable boy the master of the house asked to entertain himself. The thought made Helmut blush with shame and anger. What a ridiculous idea, when finally Helmut had a chance for an ideal shieldmate.

Helmut hadn’t been picky. Maybe his policy of non-touching was hindering things, but not overly much. In truth there weren’t many choices in their small circle of domestic terrorism and racial superiority if you had made a list. Helmut’s list wasn’t a long one, but it included a request for the healthy amount of common sense, which in turn excluded many candidates otherwise worthy of his attention. Bearable and organic appearances (no artificial or bioengineered body parts) was a strong plus, but the most important thing was to possess twin virtues of the every high-ranking military man: a warrior’s heart and strategist’s mind (of your own, a big fat NO for the artificial or bioengineered body parts!). After that there were only two men left, the other being the son of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, Andreas. But he was a second cousin of Helmut, and furthermore, so besotted with his twin sister Andrea it made George R.R. Martin’s incest couplings look like kissing cousins. (Not to mention the guy was a total dipshit.)

The second choice mentioned was Steve. It was then no wonder that Helmut wanted to do something he had never considered doing with Andreas: he wanted to give Steve his heart besides his body. As a symbol of this life altering decision, he had prepared one of his family heirlooms. It was a modest looking iron signet ring, which originally dated from the Middle ages. For some reason it hadn’t been destroyed as its owner died, and since then it had been a tradition to give that original signet to the oldest son of the family.

Steve had no knowledge of the significance of his gesture, and Helmut was not about to tell him, at least not right away. For Steve the ring would be just a lump of metal, adored clumsily with Zemo’s family crest; an osprey with spread wings squeezing a bundle of sun rays in his talons. An old and precious but utterly useless thing Helmut had the castle full of. He wondered about the right timing, and soon decided it would be after the dinner when there was that peaceful moment when the daytime duties had ended, but nighttime activities were yet to begin.

Helmut made it as nonchalant as possible, to fit his gesture in Steve’s natural modesty. He had left his gift on the book Steve had been reading, and Steve was giving it back to him (because you shouldn’t be so neglectful with you fancy things, Helmut) when Helmut took Steve’s hand and closed his fingers around the ring.

“Whatever happens… I want to give it to you for safe keeping.”

(What he really wanted was to ask Steve to be his general and conquer the rest of the world with him, but he presumed it was too early in their relationship for the c-word.)

Steve mumbled that Helmut should give the ring to his future wife instead. Helmut had to laugh at that.

“I bought the last one only diamonds. The wives have no use for the warrior’s seal. They don’t need more than wide enough hips to give birth to the healthy babies.”

Steve, always a choir boy, called him mean. Helmut should be more fair. If he had been miserable in his arranged marriage, it had not been that poor woman’s fault.

That made Helmut laugh even louder. “Actually, it was all her fault. It was her who schemed and manipulated our keepers that they finally agreed to the match. She wanted to gain more leverage through our family.”

Steve looked as if a thought about such a calculated action made him feel sad. “I have nothing much”, he said after a brief silence. Helmut’s heart started pounding against his ribs as he realized what Steve was going to do. Helmut would be given one of Steve’s dog tags.

“I don’t have a chain for you.”

Helmut had. He had a castle full of junk, and his father’s jewelry box was the first obvious choice to search. (Because it belonged to a man, it was usually called only a box, or a trinket box, but you got the picture.) Helmut took an iron chain and tried put the bauble hanging from it discreetly back to where it belonged, but Steve noticed.

“That looked like Thor’s hammer. Are you a fan or something?”

“My father was”, Helmut explained, hoping his family didn’t appear to Steve even more crazy than they actually were. “He hoped to find… I don’t know, a spiritual home, perhaps. He first tried with some secret society. They were searching for the lost land of the German race, which they identified as _Ultima Thule_. Iceland fit the bill. After that the whole family packed up and we lived there for two months… in winter. There was nothing else there than snow and ice and geysers which would burst into the air and soak everything with the boiling hot water. Everyone was relived when he started corresponding with that former chicken farmer and he got father excited about the old German pagan rites instead. The mighty Odin et cetera. Some of them kept that hammer symbol around their necks like a Christian would keep a cross.”

“You mean they worshiped Thor? Like a god… I mean, a real god?”

“His father Odin, mostly. But yes, they might have worshiped Thor too... a little bit.”

“All right”, Steve said and licked thoughtfully his lower lip. “That is very strange. I mean, he is a member of the Avengers, and… Have you ever met Thor? Talked with the guy?”

“I’m sure he would bath those devoted to him with his infinite wisdom”, Helmut deadpanned, rubbing the tiny metal plate with his fingertip. “This C in your tag… It means Catholic, I presume.”

“I believe God exists”, Steve nodded. “I just don’t think he likes me very much.”

“Or His church doesn’t... I’m a Lutheran, by the way, and even with our more lax rules and regulations, I too catch fire at the church doors. I don’t think He approved what that little corporal said about His son… Is that T your tetanus vaccination?”

“Yeah, I don’t think it is valid anymore... That last letter is my blood type.”

“I have mine in my armpit”, Helmut said, not wanting to deny the fact Steve had already seen. “That is O. A regular blood bank for everybody. If you ever get cut really bad...”

“You know”, Steve interrupted. “Stark does that also, tries to confuse me from the topic by his blabber. It’s infuriating.”

Helmut bet it was, but the topic they were heading for was not much fun either. “I’m sorry”, he placated. “Please, Steve. Would you continue?”

“I know about Waffen-SS blood group tattoos”, Steve said. His eyes had gotten that sad and angry gleam as always when he talked about the wartime. “I’ve seen them. The bodies of the fallen soldiers, you know, there were those guys who took pictures about anything… Never mind. Those SS-men were one hell of the nasty lot, and with that I mean goddammit fanatic shithead Nazi scums. I met some of those units during the battle. I can’t deny that most of them were very brave and well-trained fighters, but I think a good soldier needs more than that. A soldier has a power of life and death in his hands, and he has to do difficult moral choices. You’re a compassionate and generous man, Helmut, and more capable of those choices than those men ever were… I just don’t feel that is a right group for you to emulate, that’s all.”

“Does this mean I must sleep on the sofa this night?”

Steve slapped his arm a tad stronger than necessary. “Idiot!” he exclaimed, but his usual silent smile was already jerking the corner of his lips. Maybe it was a notch sadder version this time, but it was there. “You’re an adult. You make your own choices. In that matter, and in all the others.”

“I choose the bed then… Do you want it off?”

“What?” Steve wondered. Then he snorted at his own confusion and spread his arms, ready to hug if Helmut felt he needed that after their heavy talk. “Helmut, it’s not what you carry in your skin, but what you carry in your heart that matters.”

What if it is not only skin deep, Helmut wondered. What if the black ink of his tattoo was seeping through his veins right now, altering his blood, consuming his heart, which pureness Steve was so ridiculously sure about?

That night Helmut lay awake in their bed, a strange heaviness weighing in his mind. He felt alone and lost all the sudden, even if Steve was fast asleep beside him, so close the warmth from his back and thighs seeped through his pajamas and into Helmut’s skin. Helmut buried his nose deeper into Steve’s neck and rubbed his palm over the wide expanse of his chest, over the shirt which now hid the ancestral ring alongside Steve’s remaining dog tag. He let his eyes study that white column under Steve’s jaw, which was healing after ministrations of his teeth and lips only a few hours ago. It was sad he couldn’t mark his general any more than that. His favor had been reciprocated a plenty, as he had seen in the bathroom mirror. There were also bruises he had gained in the ring, big and small blotches on the places protective gear didn’t cover. They were from yellow to purple and black, depending on their places or the time the forceful contact had occurred.

No cuts. Steve still refused to cross the blades with him (he had started to suspect Steve was a sore loser). Why then was there blood on his pillow?

Helmut had finally fallen asleep, breathing in step with Steve. His nose must have leaked a lot, the pillow was saturated with a coarse layer which had glued itself and the cloth into his skin. He ripped it off his face and reached for the tissues when a sudden feeling of displacement rolled through his mind. He had to push his palm over his mouth to keep a loud gasp inside.

Where the hell was he? Helmut looked around and almost voiced his denial again, because his last memory was about him in the Hydra base, preparing himself for the practice (yes, they practiced too. Nobody could be a master in terrorism without proper learning), because those field trips were the few actual joys he allowed to himself. He loved the horrified expressions of the rookies when they realized one in their mist was actually their Commander. But this place was not their Richmond compound, this was...

First he couldn’t believe it. He would have liked to rub his eyes like a little kid and hope that would make a change, erase the truth his senses were telling him. Home. He was home. In Germany, in their family castle. How had that happen? He hadn’t been here in years, how could he? He was one of the top five terrorist leaders on the hot lists of influential domestic and foreign intelligence organizations. His title and the family fortune, their property and assets, had been transferred into some distant cousin’s name years ago. The man didn’t live in the castle himself, and the property and its lands were managed by the steward. That explained why nobody was trying to drive him off from his old bed.

It really was his room. Helmut let himself soak in the memories. He was sitting in the ancient four post bed, and there was the writing desk, which in papa’s stories had belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. There were trinkets the relatives and friends had brought from their journeys. A vast Arabic looking carpet from the time Baron Heinrich Zemo had adventured in Africa with the Desert Fox. A ceramic floor bowl from the same continent. A painting of the old baroque master, which his papa saved from some museum in occupied France... Even his own pitiful watercolors were in their familiar places on the wall.

A sudden burst of nostalgia made his throat and eyes feel stuffed. He didn’t want to blow his nose, in case the heavy bleeding would start all over again. Maybe the mattress had moved before, but he had been too lost in his thoughts to notice. It seemed he was sharing his childhood bed with some blond guy. He had gotten lucky, as they say. Which was very odd. He usually didn’t have… urges. His libido was so nonexistent he had assumed he was asexual. What was even weirder, he didn’t feel bad even if the guy’s naked leg was touching his. Helmut jerked and pulled his limb away, but the tell-tale nausea didn’t come. The connection had felt almost… good? which was impossible. He didn’t do touching, not in a good, bad, or any way if he could avoid it. So what the hell was happening to him? Had he hit his head or something? Was he pulling some scam right now and he just didn’t remember it? Like the one he had going on with Songbird and the Thunderbolts? Oh how many blue pills he had to take to keep that leading lady satisfied.

Something sexual had certainly happened. It didn’t feel totally comfortable to move his body in a certain ways, but it didn’t feel overly bad either. As if he was used to the activities he had been participated with that gorgeous hunk of man, who was just about to turn around in his sleep…

The man seemed to be a pillow hugger. That obstacle rolled onto the bed when the blond kept turning on his back, and Helmut was able to see his face. He was lightly interested, because he hoped seeing the guy would jolt his memory, and he couldn’t say his expectations were completely misplaced. That was the moment his confusion deepened until soon there would be a breaking point. Helmut could honestly say he would recognize that profile anywhere, just like the rest of the Western world did. It seemed he was sharing his mattress with Captain America, and apparently everything else that went with that thought.

Helmut gasped a breath that could have been a beginning of the burst of hysterical laughter, but then the last few days came rushing back into his memories. Lots and lots of rough and magnificent sex he could comprehend, because, you know, _Captain America_. If there was a guy whom everybody wanted to take out for a test drive that was him. Obviously Helmut was not immune to his sculpted, patriotic allure. What was more difficult to understand, were the memories about everything else. Mock fights over the last pieces of oranges at the breakfast table. A fist passing through his cover in the ring, then the owner of that same fist kissing his hurt better. Helmut laughing as Rogers tells him…

And then… And then there was a memory about him fucking proposing to Rogers! (Actually, he had given away his family’s original signet ring, but in this case he could have as well cut his own beating heart out of his chest and given it to Rogers in a pickle jar.)

Was that rumble incoming thunder, or was the sound his father’s making, rolling in their family tomb? Then the old bastard stops for a while and considers the options. Yes, his son was courting Captain America… the devastator of Zemo family honor, that insufferable boil in his slowly rotting Aryan butt... (roll, roll) that perfect specimen of _übermench..._ (roll! roll! roll!) was going to be a shieldmate of his only son… giving his heart, his body, his very soul… all his magnificent power under control of the present Baron Zemo... A state of affairs which would make that von Strucker moron and his inbred husk of a son burst in flames from cheer envy… the icon of the free world wearing their poison green colors and insignia of Hydra General...

The rumble was only the air conditioning. His father was cremated. No rolling, no rotting, and please concentrate, you have more important things to worry about. Oh Thor’s father. How long had he been like this? What date was it? Was his fail-safe still intact? He should call...

He felt he was starting to slip. His panic was trying to turn itself into soft-edged hum, trying to push away from his conscious mind to somewhere back of his brain. A strange numb feeling washed over his tight face muscles, making them relax. It was like invisible feathers caressing his brain, whispering there was nothing to worry. How everything was all right.

“No!” he said aloud, staggered out of the bed. The mattress rocked and Rogers whined in his sleep, sounding annoyed. His phone wasn’t on the night table, where was it? Had he left it somewhere? He had no idea where to look, and no ways either, because after only a few meters away from the bed and Rogers, he felt like somebody had stabbed him through his left eye. Helmut cried out aloud. A mountain of creamy skin and muscles moved behind him, and then Rogers was sitting on the bed, looking dazed. Helmut was still holding his temples, trying to keep his brains from splitting up, bursting out from his ears or eyes or any body cavity possible. There was nothing else he could do while waiting for Captain to realize what was going on and rush over the bed, to strangle him dead when he withered on the floor in a helpless agony.

Rogers rushed alright. But only to kiss him on the nose.

Look at that. The headache was gone as if it never existed. A ghost of pain still lingered behind his eyes. He tilted his head as Rogers cupped his cheek, but for his own surprise he didn’t try to get away, Helmut almost nuzzled against his palm. _No_ , he screamed to his body. _Stop it._ _No time_ _for_ _this_ _idiocy_ _._ _I_ _have to find my pho_ _…_ But Rogers’s hand was so warm and big and gentle…

“Come back to bed. Let me wake you up properly this time.”

Helmut closed his eyes half-mast and purred like a satisfied cat. His knee was hurting from its impact to the stone floor. Rogers’s suggestion started sounding really good actually. _Yes_.

What had he been so worried about just a few seconds ago? It was… it felt like something important, but Helmut couldn’t remember. Everything was fine. Especially those big hands descending on his hipbones. A trail of kisses from Helmut’s neck right down to his abdomen.

The teeth were nibbling the waist of his boxer briefs when Steve’s stomach let out a loud rumble. Steve’s head shot up. The look on his face was mortified.

“Stupid tummy”, Steve mumbled and rubbed his middle section while Helmut crumbled onto the bed, laughing. “You traitor. So not sexy.”

 _It was not that funny_ , a part of his brain tried to argue as Helmut pushed pillow over his mouth. (He was giggling! He was not sure if he had ever done that as a kid.) _Stop_ _acting like an idiot_ _, find your p.._ _._

“Let’s go to the kitchen”, Helmut panted, looking for his sweats. “I’m a terrible host, you served me all night long and I let you starve. Come on, pants on! Race you!”

Something in his mind groaned at his greasy line and then died anonymous death with the rest of his common sense and dignity. They both howled with laughter as they loped down the stairs. Steve reached him at the corridor, but he didn’t run pass him as Helmut had resumed. Steve grabbed his arm and waist, and lifted Helmut to fireman’s carry, not missing a step on a way.

“Good morning, Mrs. Becker”, Steve greeted the housekeeper as they arrived into the kitchen.

“Morning Mr. Rogers. Baron.”

“Now she even greets you before me”, Helmut snorted. “Put me down. No, don’t do that yet, turn me a little bit, I can’t see... That looks interesting… Yes, wonderful! Please, don’t let us interrupt, Mrs. Becker. Steve can handle the porridge, he is too polite to say but he likes his ma’s recipe better anyway.”

“Helmut”, Steve warned. He pretended to swing him face first on the floor, but Helmut turned like a big, nimble cat and landed on his feet.

“As you wish, Baron.” The housekeeper took the lipstick she had put down and continued her work. The wall was already full of text. Why did she use a lipstick was anyone’s guess, it could have been some artistic reference Helmut wasn’t familiar with. Anyway, a new poem appeared on the wall every day, in a perfect _tanka_ form _._ Helmut should find her a publicist.

Steve had taken a kettle. He put in some water and oatmeal, started adding other ingredients. “Sorry, Helmut. I know you don’t like it sweet, but I promise this is the last time. I mean, we didn’t eat like this constantly, at home we got the good kind only when we could afford sugar.”

Steve could have used the whole package of the white stuff and Helmut would have eaten it. (Gagged, but would have eaten anyway.) It was just then Steve seemed to notice what the housekeeper was doing.

“Doesn’t that strike your odd?” Steve asked, lowing his voice while looking at Mrs. Becker from the corner of his eye. She had came to the end of the wall space in the kitchen and was entering to the corridor. “I mean, wasn’t her lipstick a shade darker yesterday? That one doesn’t go well with her complexion.”

“Hers probably petered out, and she borrowed… How come you know about make-up things?”

“When we sold war bonds, the choir girls talked. In the backstage, waiting for my turn, there was nothing else to do than listen.”

“Artist’s eye...”

“Helmut, please. I scribble.”

“And sing too.”

He had done that one time. The soldiers had booed him out of the stage. Steve seemed to regret telling him about it. “If you’re so fond of singing, you sing”, he provoked.

“All right”, Helmut said. Before Steve was able to utter anything more, Helmut made a jump like a jackrabbit, from the floor to the sturdy wooden table.

“Not...” Steve realized seeing his smirk, but being too late, and he had literally asked for it.

_Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein_

_und das heißt:_

_E_ _RIKA!_

“Not that one”, Steve groaned as Helmut stomped his bare feet on the wood, mimicking marching boots. “Helmut, please. There is...”

There were other songs which had not been marching songs of the German groups (those goddammit fanatic shithead Nazi scums, as Steve eloquently put it) and shunned by the Allies after the war. Like this one. Unlike poor Erika, this lady was still liked by everybody.

_Wie einst, Lili Marleen_

_Wie einst, Lili Marleen_

Only German Steve knew was Hande hoch (hands up) and a few swearing words, but he joined the refrain. (It had been forbidden to listen to enemy radio stations, but when you were bored or scared enough and wanted good music to ease your mind, it was too much a temptation.) Helmut changed the language to English and they did all the verses once again.

“ A re you crying?” he asked after the song ended.

“No”, Steve denied, while tears rolled gently over his perfect cheekbones.

“Me neither”, Helmut whispered , trying very hard not to sniff . “That was… Surprisingly ...”

“It was”, Steve admitted, smiling in his silent way, wiping the extra moisture from his cheek with the tissue Helmut had given him. When Steve’s sea blue eyes locked with his lighter ones, a part of their shine was pure mischief again. “Let’s do it again! Do you know this one?”

_Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition_

_Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition_

_Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition_

_And we'll all stay free_

Helmut had found his phone, it had been in the pocket of his sweats all this time. Steve was doing the chorus with a funny dance and Helmut got the whole thing on the video.

“Hey!” he shouted as he noticed what Helmut was doing. “Are you shooting me? Don’t put it on that… whatyoucallit… tube!”

“Never fear, this was only for me. And you were too modest again. You’re much better than many men who fancy themselves good singers… a church choir?”

Steven shrugged. “It was convenient. The church ladies gave us cake and sweets.”

“Do you take requests?”

“I depends...”

_We'll meet again_

_Don't know where_

_Don't know when_

After a few refrains he stopped the video and showed it to Steve.

“We don’t sound too bad”, Steve admitted. “I wouldn’t go on the stage again, but...”

“I know what you mean. I will sent this to my godfather. He’s a big fan of yours, and I kind of forgot his last birthday, he made a huge fuss about it. This will smooth his ruffled feathers... You have been a great inspiration for his best works.”

“An another artist in the family”, Steve said. He seemed to be sincere, Helmut’s intended was silly that way. But the godfather...

“Let’s say he likes to sculpt people”, Helmut decided. “He has always wanted to make a difference, better the mankind.”

“That’s admirable.”

“Well… I don’t know about that. His works are very controversial.” Helmut finished his message and pushed sent. The video hesitated for a moment, as if debating the merits of Helmut’s decision. “You’ll see. Uncle Arnim will be pleased.”

*

Three hours later, the SHIELD unmanned monitor station in Dessau sent out a high priority alarm.

“Director Fury, we are having feed from the drone cameras in North Germany. The monitor station has detected a flock of flying lizards.”

Fury tapped his earpiece to acknowledge his presence. A few decades ago he would have asked Agent Sanders to repeat her information, but now he knew there was no way he had heard wrong. Unfortunately.

“Any data of their origins yet? Savage Land breed? Or is some amateur crazy scientist playing with prehistorical DNA again?”

“Their breed and the techno parts of their bodies have been identified typical for Arnim Zola, sir.”

Arnim Zola, Fury mused. One of the first genetic engineers of the world, and the head scientist of the German’s supersoldier program during the WWII. He had then and from since killed hundreds in his human trials trying to unlock the formula of the perfect man.

 _I should have_ _knocked on_ _wood._ Wasn’t it just last month Fury had wondered why they haven’t heard about that nasty old bastard over a year. But there was always a bright side as his mama used to say, and he was looking at it right about now. This week, Steve gone, Zemo missing, things had been messy, the puzzle pieces all over the table. How fortunate to finally find the puzzle box with a model picture taped on its cover.

“The program is calculating their flight plan, sir. Should I alarm the navy in case they cross the seaboard?”

“No need. They are not going that far. They will do a pit stop in Ritzenhofen.”

“Very well... But how do you know that, sir?”

“You realize it’s the place of castle Zemo.”

“Yes, but why would...”

“Agent Sanders”, Fury sighed. “There is no such a thing as a co-incidence.”

“Actually, sir...”

“In this case there isn’t. That techno trail we’ve been following, those sightings in South-Asia, they have been a decoy. Zemo duped us. They’ve been in Germany this whole time. Agent Romanoff?”

“Yes, director.”

“Did you monitor the situation via comms? What is your status?”

“Iron Man and I are on our way.”

“Only two of you?” Fury was surprised. “Were are the others?”

“Barton broke three of his fingers after he got his ass beaten up by a gang of thugs”, Stark interjected. “And I mean thugs, you know, jogging suits and blink-blink chains around the necks. Thugs! They weren’t even ninja thugs or something… Christ, you know the archers and their finger, quite useless without them. Thor by the way, he left just a few hours ago, a family emergency, he said, and with a brother like Loki I didn’t want to know more. Probably just one of those Loki’s crazy schemes to usurp the throne of Asgard and then conquer the nine realms, including Earth. Maybe we should prepare. Loki likes when people crawl. Maybe if we make padded kneecaps with little smiley faces. Sam… that one was on me, I was trying this new drone model, and it crashed into Redwing… Such an ugly sight, ouch! My poor drone was destroyed, and Sam’s pet bird was hurt too, and he got caught in that emphatic backlash of his. Sam was puking his guts out when we left, but Jarvis knows some ancient tea recipe which should be good for nausea...”

“And Van Dyne?” Fury interrupted.

“Janet is still in that fashion conference in China”, Romanoff huffed. “Even if you get her a transport via our eastern allies, there is no way she could make it in time.”

“You need more men”, Fury decided. “Agent Sanders, contact our base in Berlin. Iron Man, you haven’t met Zola’s creations before, have you? Those lizards may look stupid, but they are savage and strong as fuck, you both sit on your asses until the head of the Berlin team has assessed the situation and organized your attack plan. Got it?”

“Yes, boss.”

Stark’s bored drawl really raised Fury’s hackles. “Stark, that is a direct order”, he growled. “This is not a catwalk for your newest model, there is Rogers’s life on the line now.”

“If they are there.”

“Believe me, they will be in the middle of. So be careful and don’t trust Rogers. You may think he is innocent, but he can still be hostile. Remember that he left voluntarily with Zemo.”

Fury heard a kissing sound when some of Stark’s rude toys cut him and Agent Sanders off the line. Fury gave his earpiece a few taps, though he knew it was useless. The thing would connect when the team leader of the Avengers wanted something. Fury hoped Stark wouldn’t be a halfway down into a lizard’s stomach when that happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real Historical Figures Mentioned in This Chapter:  
> “little corporal”: Adolf Hitler. Hitler had been Gefreiter (lance corporal) in the Bavarian Army during the World War I, and unlike many other dictators he didn’t promote himself after he rose to power.
> 
> “former chicken farmer”: Heinrich Himmler. He indeed had a wide range of jobs before he became the leader of the SS. He was interested in pagan religions and the occult. 
> 
> “Desert Fox”: Erwin Rommel. A famous General from German’s North Africa campaign. 
> 
> The lyrics of the Kitchen Karaoke Songs:  
> "Erika" by Herms Niel  
> "Lili Marleen" by Hans Leip  
> "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" by Frank Loesser  
> "We’ll Meet Again" by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles


	5. Armor Malfunctions And Technicolor Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Tony’s campaign against flying lizards goes south, Fury is forced to deal with the aftermath.

Fury thought he was reckless. A drunken philanderer, a sad little rich boy, who didn’t care about anything else than his own fleeting satisfaction. Tony had to admit Fury was partially right about that, but hey, the studies proved red wine was good for your health, look at all those hundred years old Sicilian grannies. And sex, that was actually an exercise, an aerobic training session, 4.2 calories per minute. (Tony had it gauged long before anybody had heard about smartwatches.) It didn’t change the fact he had seen his own file in SHIELD archive, had read Fury’s comments, and knew the director of SHIELD had wanted Iron Man, not the man named Anthony Edward Stark.

 _Undeveloped impulse control_ , some shrink had written about him. _Unfit to_ _work in_ _a_ _team, hostile towards authoritative figures..._

The worst of it was Fury letting him hack their system on purpose. Tony was meant to see that cursed file and then when his self-esteem had hit all time low, Fury really rubbed it in by making him work side by side with a man who was his total opposite. Who was so perfect in every way it was mind blowing. Not to mention, his dad’s favorite son. That’s right, his old man had spent heaps of their money to finance expeditions trying to locate Rogers’s body, to give him a hero’s burial the man deserved. (Only later Tony had started thinking whether that was the _sole_ purpose of his father’s struggles. Maybe his old man had wanted genetic material from Captain’s corpse, to clone some mini Captains who he would be proud to call his offspring. A swarm of manly-man, hetero-guaranteed sons with their square jaws and pecs like… like very masculine tits, actually. Captains whose little captains didn’t shoot blanks because Howard had to play with poisonous thingies in his workshop while baby sitting.)

Yeah, right. Rogers whose left dimple could knock the ladies out of their socks and panties and any kind of wardrobe while the man was throwing that oversized salad plate of his. That guy we are talking about. Captain America. Mister not-so-dead-after-all had a status of a co-leader, but who were they kidding? When push came to shove, who’s orders would the team follow? Tony’s? He didn’t think so. Those yo-yos would go to the hell and back to hear Rogers utter a few of his unimaginative swearwords. (Tony would also, but that was not the point.)

_Capable of concentrating intensively but only on the tasks of his interest… Could maybe benefit from ADHD medication?_

The point was… Actually, there was no point, or if there was Tony had forgotten it during his inner rant. There had been nothing else to do but to barricade himself in his workshop. That was an excellent place to sulk in peace, while trying to find happiness and purpose in life from the knowledge he was still the only engineer genius around the block. He could make things! Maybe he had to be a little tipsy during his creative period, but that could be from the lack of nutrition and sleep. Many didn’t know that staying awake 24 hours equaled one per mill alcohol level which in turn caused difficulty to control one’s speech or body, caused impaired balance, double vision, and many other not so funny things, if you considered the aftermath. (Like that time he had to try if a soldering iron could be used as a tattoo gun.)

_...intoxicant and drugs abuse… self-destructive behavior typical for a victim of abusive childhood..._

Nothing else to do than to put his foot down. Iron Man was not the genius who designed fancy gizmos for SHIELD, Tony was. He was the guy who had made the interrupters which their German team was using right now against those flying GoT rejects. Nothing royal in these ugly bastards, but Tony’s interrupters worked on them like a charm, disrupting electromagnetic activities of the minuscule lizardy brains and making the animals wobbly wobbly wobbly before they crashed on the ground. Perfect SI guns with Tony’s perfect air support (with Natasha’s help). They were quickly winning, but then those landed lizards let go minuscule android thingies from their techno rucksacks. The baby androids were first a size of a large fist, but somehow they started to grow and grow and grow…

The android thingies from those techno rucksacks (try saying that one fast!) grew until they were about eight feet tall, and then they started shooting death rays from their eyes. They were… so vintage and so stupid at the same time Tony let himself hover and admired the sight while his and the head German’s great battle plan unraveled itself. He couldn’t know that some of those android thingies where able to launch disc-shaped devices, which let go a focused EM pulses on a surface they attached themselves with their cute magnetic cricket feet. The adorable little bastards made his armor stop functioning and then he was in a free-fall towards a very far and very hard looking balcony. _Shitshitshitfuck_ and why did they have to built these castles out of stone? Have they not heard about marshmallow castles, Tony had time to think before the impact made his bones rattle.

Tony didn’t lost consciousness, but his suit was temporarily _kaput_ as they said in this country. The system was booting itself and while the armor did that he was trapped inside of a stiff and unmovable action figure lookalike of Iron Man. _Power_ _at_ _17 percent_ , the computer told him with its vaguely feminine voice. If he had to sit here like some 260 million dollar tech statue, he should at least have company with some personality... Hm, that was an idea… Should he contact Natasha, by the way, ask if she wanted to be immortalized as a sexy computer voice… He should contact Natasha, tell her he was alright… or should he? _Power_ _at_ _26 percent._ God, why was this taking so long! Next thing to do should be the betterment of this death trap… No, not a death trap, sorry suit, papa didn’t mean it, papa is just annoyed it’s taking _so fucking long_! Fuck, he wasn’t usually able to be still this long even in a toilet… (thank god he had fast bowel movements, otherwise it would be embarrassing, not to say messy.) _Power_ _at_ _34 percent._ Come on! Should he contact Natasha, really… but what if she just tells him to take care of himself… He was a leader (a co-leader) he should be equal to occasion… wasn’t that good those android thingies were not interested in him any more, but were swarming towards that guy shooting them with a big-ass gun?

Who the hell was that guy anyway? He didn’t look like one of those German agents. Or why was there an old naked guy… Wait a minute! An old naked guy, what is wrong with this sentence except everything. Tony forget the guy with a gun and stared at the strange sight in front of him. (Or actually slightly to his left, if one didn’t mind he was moving his eyes.) The naked guy was not totally naked, he had a brown trilby and a tray with a cocktail glass. Tony didn’t usually intervene with anyone’s drinking habits, because it was always 5 PM somewhere… but. It was peculiar... and was that Sex on the Beach? With cream on the top? There _had to_ be a story somewhere.

“You all right down there?”

Oh shit. Now the guy who had asked his naked butler to make him icky cocktails was inquiring after his well-being. Don’t turn around, don’t turn around, please, please! Don’t turn around… _55 percent._ Whoa, that _is_ one big-ass gun… Oh gunny, what a big blast you have… From Hammer? No, it looks too powerful to be from Justin’s B-listed malfunctory… Actually, it’s kind of familiar, oh shit, no, it could not be one of SI models, could it? Yes, it is, but he had never ever never sold anything to Hydra, not even before Afghanistan when he had been in his most greediest…

 _7_ _8_ _percent._

You weapon thief, Tony wanted to shout, because the guy in a gentleman hunter’s outfit was nobody else than Baron Helmut Zemo minus the purple sock he usually liked to keep over his face. Tony wondered why. Without the scar (or maybe because of the scar) the guy was devastatingly good looking if one could tolerate his unattractive naziness. Those riding boots and flared-hip breeches really made wonders to the manly figure. Maybe he should try one himself… The boots… did those Adolf types fuck their heels together? _Jawohl,_ Tony, _raus,_ _raus_. Would it be exciting if Zemo barked commands in German during the sex or was that too cliche? Maybe the guy was a total opposite, a fussy little kitten, those tight lips letting out needy mewling sounds. There would be scented candles and massage oil and Celine Dion songs… and why was he thinking Zemo in the sack when the guy had kidnapped Steve and was keeping him a prisoner and he had a big-ass gun in his disposal which he could turn against Tony at any moment now.

_92 percent_

Yes! Finally! Repulsors were charging, their high-pitched hum filling Tony with giddy feeling he seldom had outside his workshop. This was more like it! The leader stuff. There was still going to be some work with those pesky androids, but Zemo and the whereabouts of their team leader (co-leader!) was now Tony’s first priority.

“Zemo!” Iron Man shouted. “You’re under arrest! Put down your weapon!”

Zemo didn’t do such a thing. “Little busy right now, metal pants”, he smirked and shot at the android which was climbing over the rail of the balcony. The android’s head popped up and bounced on the floor, rolling towards Tony, who kicked it absentmindedly. A wisecracking supervillain? That was new. Usually those guys bantered only with Spider-Man. (Maybe because they knew good old Spidey was not going to burn any holes in them with concentrated bursts of plasma.)

“That was your last and only warning! Where is Captain America?”

“In dungeons”, Zemo said. “If your team is holding this side, we should better...”

Tony didn’t hear the rest of what Zemo was blathering, he was too busy to visualize Steve in chains. A moist, dark hole under the castle… Whip marks on his back… Holy hell! Tony pushed Zemo against the wall and grabbed his wrist and squeezed until he heard the weapon clattering on the stone floor. He changed his hold to Zemo’s neck and saw how his opponent’s pupils started to grow. Oh god, this guy was even kinkier than him! (Tony had thought to put Steve in many places but the dungeon hadn’t crossed his mind. Maybe that was a European thing… decadent aristocracy... Tony could easily built his own dungeon under his Mansion… And then… How about military sandwich with Tony as a hamburger? Or any other combination, he wasn’t picky... it would work like a dream… like his suit.)

Look mama! Lifting this 190 pounds beach boy jock in the air and needing only one arm. Tony loved his suit. It was making him feel so strong. Unstoppable...

 _S_ _uit compromised_ , a vaguely feminine voice interrupted his musings. _Unidentified substance_.

“What…”

_Suit compromised. Air infected. Starting countermeasures in… three, two, one..._

Tony sputtered and took an involuntary step back as the armor’s defense system let a spray of gas on his face. Zemo railed behind him. His pupils were back in their normal size and he was trying to pry the metal fingers of the gauntlet off his throat. Tony had been startled by the spray and had almost crushed the guy’s wind pipe.

“Stark, don’t touch me”, Zemo sputtered as Tony let go of him. “It is contagious! You will be…”

“Don’t tell me what to do, you Nazi scumbag”, Tony said, feeling a bit bad, but heroes were not supposed to admit their mistakes, not to the bad guys. He raised his right repulsor next to Zemo’s scarless cheek and hoped to sound menacing enough: “Now. You have three seconds to show me the way to Steve, or you’ll get a pair to that...”

 _Disinfection ineffective,_ the computer interrupted. _Danger. Suit compromised._

The gagging sound Zemo made was the only warning Tony got. Zemo couldn’t move his head while Tony’s repulsor was humming a few inches from his face, and when he heaved a massive clump of blood, the most of it spilled on his tweet jacket and Tony’s armor.

“Hey!” Tony shouted. “Couldn’t you just… I mean... Yak!”

God, it was icky! It took Tony a few minutes before he started wondering what the hell had happened. Had somebody shot Zemo? No, there was no smoldering holes or tiny leaky ones. Zemo was alright minus the blood. Food poisoning? Had the naked butler gotten annoyed and spiked his master’s drink? The naked guy… Tony remembered the old man when he hurried besides Zemo, giving him a big white hankie. Not to self, never annoy Jarvis too much.

That was a note Tony was never able to make. At the same time the thought had come into his mind his migraine reminded him who was the boss of his head. Or at least Tony assumed it was a migraine attack. His left eye felt like it was stabbed through with a knitting needle, straight to his brain. Suddenly it was hard to think.

“Iron Man, what is your status?”

The voice… it was Natasha, but she seemed to be far away… God, his head, it felt as it was in fire… Tony had to say something though, otherwise she would think he was unsuitable to lead… but actually, did that really matter? Why would Natasha’s opinion of him matter…

“Zemo told me Steve is in the dungeons”, Tony said through the gritted teeth as Natasha had repeated her call. “Going there.”

“Confirm. We will keep the rest of the hostiles busy.”

Yes… there seemed to be some androids, Tony thought. Some older models… but there had been something more important than those… God, what was it? Something itchy was sliding over his lip and Tony wiped it away. It was blood, was it Zemo’s or was his nose bleeding? Maybe Zemo could loan Tony a hankie or should he just burn the icky stuff off his chest plate? There were still blots here and there on Zemo’s face, he is licking his lips clean… Oh children of the night, what music they make… Funny… A baron not a count, but both looked the same after the munchies... A stone castle and the castle master who licks blood from his chin…

Or drinks. Drinks blood… drink...

He felt restless, his body jerked inside the armor. Suddenly it felt as if he was only a few moments from having a staring contest with a bottle of thirty years old scotch. No, Tony shook his head in denial as the horror of his last binge came to his mind. Not that again, he had been so well for months… only a few sniffs of coke once in a way. He should… The dungeons! Yes! Steve and his America’s ass were in danger.

Tony grabbed the glass from tray and downed the icky cocktail with a few hasty sucks. It felt weird to get a resentful stare from the naked guy for the sake of his table manners, or maybe the butler was sore because Tony had grabbed Zemo’s arm and was hauling him towards the stairs like the guy was a sack of grain. Tony was going down, or had anybody heard about the dungeons which were in the attic?

Come on, come on… where was it? It should be illegal to have so many corridors… ah!

Tony had almost run past something which in a normal apartment would have passed as a living room. There was a huge fireplace and armchairs, furs and oriental carpets and a grand piano… and there just beside the loveseat a discreet low cabinet… (You can’t dupe Tony with these things!)

He opened the cabinet doors and felt how saliva filled his mouth. These aristotypes certainly knew how to live. The Nazi bastard had Hennessy Ellipse... And Suntory Hibiki! All Tony’s favorites. And then they say crime doesn’t pay.

“Please, help yourself. It’s not like your friend is in a mortal peril”, Zemo huffed watching as Tony moved the bottles around like a child who couldn’t choose between his Lego bricks. Was he tapping his feet? Did actual people do that, Tony wondered as Zemo made a sharp turn and goose marched towards the corridor. Maybe Tony felt shame, but not enough not to take a couple of bottles with him. He fastened them on the back plate before running after his unwilling host. He would repulse Zemo’s haughty ass better after he had gotten a proper drink.

“Uncle Arnim dropped a leviathan into the lake”, Zemo explained while they were hopping down the endless stairs. “Nasty things. If they get wet they will start growing. When that thing gains its full size, it can crush the castle. But then that air raid started and we had to separate.”

The last landing and the metal door and they were at the dungeons. Or in a cellar with a marina, he hadn’t realized the lake reached under the castle. There were no boats, but a huge flailing mass of flesh and above it…

All right. Maybe Tony had understood that one badly. No whips, obviously, no chains either. Steve was running and jumping and hacking the flesh over the biggest mouth Tony had ever seen, it was like… like… really big. Steve’s shield raised up and downed again no less fervor than a lumber jack’s ax in some Canadian forest. His face was covered with the yellowish goo and that eerie adrenaline fueled glee which Tony had started to be familiar with.

“Helmut!” Steve had to yell to be heard over the noise the beast made. “Why in hell there is blood all over your fucking jacket! Are you fucking hurt?”

“No, I’m fine! Just got us some help!”

Tony realized Zemo meant him. All right. Yes, help… but he had still a bottle in his hand. If he was going to shoot with the repulsor he would have to let go… Should he just put it down? Maybe it would be safest to drink it away…

While Tony was weighting his options, Zemo rushed past him.

Whoa, look at his aristoass go, Tony wondered. Whence did he got those swords? Zemo needed just a domino mask and he would be swashbuckling like those gentleman adventures in the pulp novels Howard had sometimes eyed between the blueprints. Somehow he was already on the beast’s back, next to Steve. He shoved his sword into the beast’s eyehole and continued stabbing around its gill-like openings.

“Iron Man! For fuck’s sake! Start shooting, or I’ll come there and take your fucking gauntlet and shove it so deep in your...”

Tony didn’t get to know which body cavity Steve would have preferred as he blasted into the beast’s mouth. A part of the monster exploded and Zemo was ejected from its back and into the lake. It had happened so fast his sword was still lodged in the beast’s flesh. For a second Steve looked like he was ready to take Zemo’s skewer and rush it right through Tony, but then they saw how Zemo bobbed up and sputtered in the foul looking water. And what was that, being on a first name basis with his kidnapper? Was Steve suffering from Stockholm syndrome?

The monster seemed to be in its death throttles. It was quaking and there was yellowish goo all over the place, but of course Steve was not satisfied.

“Its brains, Tony!” Steve was using his patient Captain voice which always meant Tony had screwed up one way or another. “Jesus H. Christ! Its main brain is in its fucking rear under the bone armor! Stop playing with your eight balls and get on with it!”

The brown-nose Stevie had probably memorized the SHIELD Handbook of Ugly-Ass Monsters. “Like a regular Volkswagen Beetle”, Tony mumbled. “Both are the ass guys… Those German designers…”

Tony shut up. The quicker they got rid off the thing the sooner he could enjoy his Hibiki again. He rose in the air and made sure Steve was out of the way before he blasted with his both repulsors. There was an awful and too human shriek, but the most of the rear of the thing was now a gaping goo hole. Tony waited for a while, but the beast lay still and Tony could return to his dash. He lifted his faceplate, and after a couple of deep gulps started to relax.

“If its brain was in its rear… what were you and Zemo after?”

“Its heart.”

First Tony thought Steve must be talking figuratively. “It had a heart in his head? What? Was it in heat or something? Are we talking about some King Kong and the Maiden scenario here, because Steve would do nicely...”

“Its physique is meant to confuse its adversaries”, Zemo interrupted. “Not to say Uncle Arnim likes to experiment.”

Yeah, call a sadistic Nazi scientist Uncle Arnim. That will inspire confidence. Just like those dreamy looks Zemo was projecting every time he looked at Steve.

“Not that we don’t own you a gratitude but what are you doing here, Tony?” Steve interrupted his musings. “Have you the whole team with you?”

“Noup. Just me and Natasha”, Tony said. (Great! Tell Steve the Hydra-Puppet everything!) “She was...”

She was right there. Tony had no idea how long Natasha had been standing in the shadows. Maybe long enough because her guns were in their holsters. Her face had the usual blank look, helped now by a black heavy duty respirator over her mouth and nose. Her stance was so loose it screamed her readiness to kick somebody’s ass. Tony shivered under his armor, because (let’s be honest here) even with his fancy tech, he was a bit a coward.

“Iron Man, why don’t you answer your comm?”

Tony had turned it off. He hated when his thoughts were interrupted, and Natasha nodded as that was a plausible explanation. Then everything was fine, wasn’t it?

“Widow”, Steve greeted her. “Did you and the agents take care of those lizards?”

“Yes, Cap. You seem to have a monster of your own… What is that thing?”

“A leviathan”, Steve explained. “If a head is cut off, no more shall take its place… maybe because the poor dear has no neck.”

Zemo laughed. Not in a way Tony did when he wanted to get into some boring dick’s pants, but genuine amused.

“You...” Steve started. Then he used his super reflexes and grabbed Zemo, pulled him forward until their faces almost touched each others. Auch, Tony had time to think, but to his astonishment Steve was not going to clock Zemo. No way, he captured Zemo’s lips into the kiss so hot it would have made metal blush. Zemo was not displeased about Steve’s sudden attack, he even let go of his blade to get a better hold of Steve’s shoulders.

“Iron Man”, Natasha called him. “Activate your armor’s defense system.”

“What...” Tony mumbled. He didn’t know which activity to choose, to drink or to leer, and optioned to do both at the same time.

“Tony!” Natasha shouted, and now she was using her scary voice. “Your defense system! Put your faceplate down and do it now!”

“I already did”, Tony protested. “It couldn’t do anything, yapped about some danger. No, no danger here though I may come into my pants looking at those two go and that is messy… did I just say that one aloud? Am I drunk or something? Of course I don’t come so fast. Stark men are made of iron, you know... Do I slur a little? What do you think?”

Natasha didn’t seem pleased by his answer. “Then my mask is useless too... Tony, do you have any idea how soon the symptoms will start after the exposure?”

“What symptoms?” Tony asked, which for some reason made Natasha cuss. Overall, swearing was not allowed but during the battle (Steve’s rules). This once he was able to remind somebody else about their bad behavior.

*

Fury hated hazmat suits. Not because they were clumsy. And white. The tiniest drip of the usual body products could be seen as it was. Every shade of Skittles colors had been puked or leaked or exploded on him during his long career of espionage and law enforcement. The usual chance of being a human-shaped waste basked didn’t make him skittish, for that he had needed agent Romanoff’s messages. _Bio hazard, class one._ _Both targets and Iron Man compromised._

So why did Fury hate the hazmat suits? Maybe because with them you were never totally safe. You never knew which stupid way the danger would reach you. A small puncture could be lethal, a hole which his mama would have taken a few minutes to stitch. A leaking mask and you could be dead, or at the fewest dead of embarrassment when you woke up after whatever sex pollen or AIM made zombie virus or alien bacteria had temporarily taken over your mind and body.

“Stay sharp”, Fury said to the team gathered around him. “Look out for the symptoms. Any nosebleed or sudden spurts of headache and you get your ass to the quarantine area immediately.”

If they had needed tip-offs to see something was wrong, they could gather them just by watching how Quinjet was landing. The plane’s movements told there was nobody in controls, its system was on autopilot.

As the door opened, Fury was reminded of the horror movies he had seen as a kid. A ghost ship arriving to the harbor. Everyone in a dark movie theater knew what would happen after the unsuspecting harbor master and his assistant boarded the ship: it was always plague or monsters, or in this case, maybe both at the same time.

Fury took a firmer grip of his gun when a hunched figure appeared at the doorway. It was not Romanoff, whose communicator had fallen silent over an hour and a half ago. It was Zemo. He stepped slowly forward and raised his hands. He had no sharpened eyeteeth, but he looked haggard and his face and clothes were caked with blood and dried, yellowish goo. Fury heard how the rookie on his left side gasped and he wished the guy was not a trigger-happy sort.

“Stay where you are!” Fury shouted, because he was not an extra in the film of his own life. He was not a red shirted guy in a space adventure. He or his men were not going to come to harm because he was not wary like the poor harbor master. “Zemo, are you with us? Can you tell me where is agent Romanoff?”

“She went under. She said she talked with my butler before she realized to use the mask.”

Fury had guessed right, but he felt no rush to congratulate himself. “So it’s airborne?”

“Seems to. Really no idea.” Zemo huffed. “For some reason, I haven’t been in my best observatory mind. I was like them just a few hours ago. Romanoff is in the cabin, she is talking to somebody in her imagination… probably a kid. Stark run out of alcohol and tried to drink some blue liquid from the supply chest, got a half a bottle down. I made him puke and then sedated him, but I think you better pump his stomach.”

“You don’t look so good yourself.”

“Tell me about it. It seems… I’m the patient zero. I don’t know what the bleeding means, the end of the breeding cycle, perhaps? I’ve been lucid almost the whole trip from Germany which is unusual. I’ve been loosing blood constantly, but this time it doesn’t seem to end. I will probably pass out soon.”

Zemo looked like it, but he had better resist the dreamland until Fury had asked all his questions. “And Rogers? Is he...”

Captain appeared at the doorway as if he had heard his name. Maybe he had. He strolled down the ramp with unhurried pace, ignoring the dozen guns leveled towards him and stilled beside Zemo. His gaze assessed the situation and from the frown in his helmet-free forehead, he found it lacking. Everyone knew what that could mean. Rogers had seen the tranquilize guns which were less than useless against the kevlar enhanced uniform covering his upper body. The only good targets would be his face and thighs. It should not been a problem with a normal man, but super soldier serum made his drug resistance too strong, they would need lots of straight hits to stun him. That option null and void, Fury could give an order, and the agents would start firing real bullets at them. Zemo would die instantly, but Captain…

It was ironic they could not do it. Not because it was equal to the shooting at the flag or hacking the nose of Washington at Mount Rushmore. They just weren’t fast enough. They could not render Captain harmless or dead before he had a chance to reach at least some of them, and the tiniest hole in the suit would be enough. The only option had been to shot Captain at the moment he entered the doorway, and Fury had chosen not to give that order. He just hoped he wouldn’t regret his decision.

“Good afternoon, Director.” Rogers nodded his greeting. (God, that boy was polite even not in his right mind.) “What is this? A welcome committee? For some reason it doesn’t make me feel very welcome.”

There was the shield and the stance from which Fury had seen Rogers leap forward like a big jungle cat. That suspicious and calculating stare Fury was also too familiar with.

“Well, Fury. I don’t see you doing anything. You see how Helmut is. Wouldn’t he got more use for a nurse and bandages than your guns?”

“Captain”, Fury started. Probably he would have said something to gain his face full of frisbee made of vibranium-steel alloy, but Zemo was faster, putting his hand on Rogers’s shoulder, leaning closer his head. “Fury wanted to know about Tony and Natasha. Did you notice your teammates are acting strange?”

Those stormy eyes started to melt as Rogers turned to face Zemo. “Maybe… but I don’t know them so well. And you are not the one to talk. You let your butler walk around naked. I don’t want to tell you or him what to do, but please consider he is an old man. What if he gets a flu or something. And don’t chance the subject. You are hurt. Iron Man hurt you when he blasted that leviathan’s head… And even before you got those blackouts. You didn’t know where you were and you were scared of me, Helmut! Somethings is wrong. You should be examined by a doctor.”

Rogers turned to stare at them again, probably calculating the fastest trail through the SHIELD team and to the infirmary. Before joining the funny farmers, Romanoff had given Fury a short version of the incident in Ritzenhofen. She had mentioned how Rogers and Zemo interacted, but it was eerie to see it with his one good eye. Rogers had been with the Avengers almost six months, and he still stated he didn’t know or trust his teammates. But with Hydra commander he acted like they were old friends.

“It’s just a nosebleed again. Nothing serious… Do you trust me, Steve?”

The super soldier’s frown deepened, the corner of his perfect mouth making an unhappy line.

“Of course I do”, he said with more emotion Fury had ever detected from him. “Helmut, after all we have done… how could you ask that?”

“Could you give me your shield then? I think the sun is making my headache and nosebleed worse. I would need something to use as an umbrella.”

He may have only one eye, but he still had his both ears. No way he had got that one wrong. There was collective breath keeping and some shuffling of the combat boots as his team considered Captain’s possible reactions to Zemo’s request. It was almost an anti-climax as Rogers gave his shield to Zemo obviously thinking nothing much of the act.

“Thanks, Steve”, Zemo said. “Now just... if you could pull your kevlar off. There is no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy the sun, and you look so much better without all those layers.”

Fury had never seen such a look on Rogers’s face. It was something between lecherous smirk and deep and loving admiration. He seemed to forget he was surrounded by the agents and their guns and started undressing. He was as swift and efficient in his task as a soldier should be, but his expression made it naughty, as if they were watching the most audacious strip-tease of all time. A more than a few of the spectators probably hoped they could use their cameras. (Goddammit, one of the agents _was_ shooting Rogers! Fury gave the man a hairy eyeball and he looked sheepish, putting his phone away.)

Fury signaled them to proceed. Rogers had hardly time to let go of his uniform top when his back was riddled with tranquilizing darts. His eyes widened as he stepped in front of Zemo. To hit him? Of course not. He was covering the man from them. While blacking out from the drug, Captain America was protecting a Hydra commander against SHIELD. It was certainly something to tell to your grandchildren at the coffee table.

Rogers dropped on his knees. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Zemo took a grip of his shoulders and helped him on the ground. Rogers lay still, but he seemed to be breathing. Zemo touched his neck to check his pulse.

“Don’t try to take the shield”, Fury warned as Zemo rose from his crouch.

“Very funny, Fury. Can _you_ throw it? And I mean throw like you could really hit something with that thing.”

Somebody sniggered. Fury was almost certain he recognized the voice. He wrote it down into his little book of grudges besides the camera guy.

“My people…” Zemo stopped, realizing his poor choice of words. “Not Hydra... the castle staff. They are affected too.”

“We are working on it”, Fury said. “They are in quarantine, same as the near village. We are tracking down everybody they have possible been in contact with. Sit down, Zemo. If you don’t want to hurt yourself as you fall.”

Zemo gave him a stiff nod, which one could take as a thank you. He had no kevlar but he pulled off his jacket anyway, to get them better access. They needed only one dart this time.


	6. The Prisoners of False Assumptions (with Sci-fi Manacles)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After reading his old files and observing him in action for several months, Fury is sure he knows Captain America. But obviously he hasn’t yet made Steve Rogers’s acquaintance.

The town was a roadside casualty along the road 66. The SHIELD base was hidden underground, their black cars explained by huge billboards all across the area. It seemed some wealthy but original investor had big plans to restore a former tourist attraction. If somebody asked, they were making Santa Claus Land, Texas.

The SHIELD base, however, was not known for its reindeer carousels or red jacketed fat men with their white beards and merry laughter. It was a quarantine facility, full of labs, top notch medical equipment, and holding cells which have seen hostile aliens but also unfortunate human beings with unique, sometimes lethal conditions. The cells now masquerading as hospital rooms were hosting a part of the Avengers team and a certain Hydra commander.

It was T + 7 hours, and science and medical division was indeed buzzing around like kids in the Christmas morning as they tried to find scientific or magical explanation for the phenomenon which run amok around their standard tests and left them with nothing.

_Note to self_ , Fury thought as he strode down the corridor towards the main lab. _Ask Stark to design something non-lethal which acts solely against_ _Rogers_ _._

He had been out of options from the very start, and Fury hated that. They could have struck that Quinjet with electric shock or any other toy they had in their disposal, but big enough charge to leave Rogers unconscious would have killed everybody else on board. With pulse guns or gases, the same story.

“All right, Doctor Perry. Some good news, please.”

The woman standing in front of one of the cells didn’t raise her eyes from her tablet. “Director Fury, as I stated previously, I’m a scientist, not a fairy godmother. I don’t bring gifts, people bring them to me, and this is that kind of occasion. My assistant will have his doctoral dissertation made out of this data. If I didn’t have a few of those in this field of study, I too would be tempted.”

Doctor Samantha Perry was a brilliant biochemist, but not a people person. On a bad day Fury thought she would have been a hoot in some underground laboratory which didn’t mind illegal human trials. (More amoral than the ones SHIELD did, Fury meant). The sedation had worn out and the people in the cells were awake. It was contradictory if they were aware of their surroundings or what they were actually doing. The front walls of their “rooms” were transparent, greenish glass and hold less privacy than standard SHIELD holding cells. The door microphones were off. It was like watching a silent movie about Captain America versus the toilet bowl. One massive yank and the floor and the piping gave out, water was flushing all over the place as Rogers lifted the bowl above his head and tossed it at the glass wall as he had already done to the sink. He then shifted his housekeeping struggles to his bed frame which would soon look like a piece of modern art.

“As you can see, Director, Stark and Romanoff are not in as active phase as Rogers. It’s inconvenient we can’t try if the nearness of the patient zero would improve their physical or mental condition.”

Fury let his one eye show his displeasure, which she returned without blinking. Fury had no doubt she would invent all kind of interesting tests for her human-shaped guinea pigs after given a permission. (For science, Fury!)

He moved his gaze from Rogers to the room on the left which was occupied by Stark. He was lying on his bed, his lips moving. He was indeed less restless than Rogers as Doctor Perry had stated, but he was shaking like a dog left on the porch in a downpour.

Maybe the most eerie was Romanoff. She was in the room next to Stark, and it would have been understatement to say she was not moving. She was more still than a mannequin doll behind her green tinted window, pushing her finger pads lightly on the glass. Her eyes were wide and full of ghosts of Christmas past.

At the other side of the lab, in the room next the Hulk secure guarantee area, was Zemo.

“Is Zemo still lucid? Can he be talked with?”

“Yes. But he claims he has no more insight about the matters as we do. As usual for a Hydra officer of his rank, his mind is warded against standard telepathic probes, and we have no way to deduct if he is lying or not. The test result of his earlier detainment showed high resistance for any chemicals used in so called truth serums. Let me remind you there are however chemical or physical procedures which could gain us useful information without jeopardizing the patient zero’s further usability in the treatment of our agents.”

She was talking about torture like it was just another medical practice. Why not, Fury had used her insight in the past. But this was not a half mad suicide bomber who sat on the information of a missing atomic bomb. Commander Helmut Zemo was one of the wanted leaders of the right wing organization which had intervened itself so deep in the Western society it had became a household name. For too many people he _was_ a white knight in shining armor. A defender of the traditional world order and military virtues which the decadent modern society seemed to forgotten in its haste to embrace equality and freedom. There was nothing to gain by giving that lot a new martyr.

And Zemo was…

Fury was too old for this. He shook his head.

“Quite right”, she nodded. “Not the action I would have recommend in this case. There is already something which may or may not complicate matters in the future.”

Fury looked at his tablet. She had sent him a preliminary report of the three Avengers over an hour ago, but nothing about Zemo. After he had browsed pictures and read short medical notes he didn’t question the delay.

Several things run through his mind. Some of them he should have been ashamed about, but you couldn’t be a director of a half secret law enforcement office and deal with apocalyptic threats every other Thursday if you were a faint of heart do-gooder. Hell, sometimes he couldn’t look himself in the mirror without seeing cracks all over the glass.

_This was a key to a chain which he could lock around Rogers neck if the super soldier ever thought about questioning their orders. Rogers would do anything to keep this one secret._

On the other hand, once this report had been made public (and somehow that always happened in the worst possible moment), they would be all under investigation. Fury was the one who had ordered Rogers to interrogate Hydra Commander, and the pictures where personnel abused and tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib were still fresh in mind of the general public. If that had caused an uproar, this was a scandal which would devastate the nation. The history books had to be updated. Captain America, their shining symbol of hope, would be ruined forever.

_He is all yours_ , he had said to Rogers. _Report only to me._

Was he looking at the end result of that order? Or could this be something else? But what else could it be? The look on Rogers’s face when Zemo had asked him to strip had been utterly lascivious and made Fury remember an incident from his childhood. How his grandmother’s favorite pastor had been brought into question as a child molester. Granny had cried and refused to believe the accusations, but his mother had only nodded as if the bad news were something she had been expecting all along: it was always the most holy who did the most horrendous.

He hadn’t seen this coming. He had been as blind in his hero worshiping as everybody else.

Afterwards was easy to see when and how the things had started to go astray. Everything had went too fast, he had been too greedy to get the legendary soldier to take part in his missions. The psych evaluation had been just a formality when Rogers would have needed a full interview and observation period instead. His introduction to the modern times had concentrated more on the technical side of the daily necessities. Rogers got to know how to use a mobile phone or a coffee machine, while they were forgetting almost wholly the interpersonal or social issues he would meet in the modern society. (Not to embarrass Captain America had been the general idea.) If Fury could choose again, he would start with 40 hour sex education class and sensibilities be damned. The whole spectrum from vanilla to the kinkiest kink, all orientations and variations within, all of it clinically explained, actions divested from their mystique and tempting sinfulness. How the masturbation was a good way to lose some steam. (With a damn picture guide if that was necessary!) How you didn’t have to be married to have sex if it was between consenting adults. How prostitution was still illegal but gay sex or interracial sex was not. How no meant no, any time, no matter who uttered it and to whom.

But he hadn’t done anything of that kind. He had been too busy with other things he considered more important. He had given Rogers a gym and too much free time to stew in his dark feelings, because the proof seen in these pictures was hardly a work of a man with Catholic boy scout morals as Rogers had played himself to be.

Fury was halfway down the corridor when he forced his train of thought to halt. There were other puzzle pieces which didn’t fit into this horror picture show occupying his mind, but he removed them to wait a further investigation. He put his thumb on the panel to activate the microphone and the computer screens. Zemo had gotten the second best room in the house. (The Hulk-proof cell being the best.) It was spacious and full of medical equipment which tried to predict the twist and turns of his condition.

“Eyes on the screen. I’ll sent you some pictures.”

Zemo’s gaze turned slowly to look at somewhere above the door. The brows knitted together. The green tinted glass wall was one sided like in any other room flash cell spaces in the base. If Fury was expecting some other reaction than confusion on Zemo’s part he was on the road to disappointment.

“Any explanations? Or should I draw my own conclusions?”

Zemo didn’t say anything. Fury had sent him the pictures of his medical examination, which showed his torso full of bruises in every healing stage, the worst being his arms and thighs.

“Did he have your consent?”

Zemo blinked and his stare moved from the screen to Fury. “Kind of.”

“And what would that mean?”

“I didn’t enjoy it, I’m not a masochist. But hell, would you want to appear sissy in front of Captain America? And he was right of course. Without my blades I suck. Helpless as a kitten.”

Fury had started to think they were not talking about the same matter. “Those bruises on your throat...”

“Iron Man.”

Fury felt a bit relieved… but there were still those teeth marks all over Zemo’s shoulders and ass, and finger shaped bruises on his hips and inner thighs.

That moment he wanted desperately back to the good old days. Only a few decades before, all he had to do was make sure his agents didn’t ram the villain completely dead before they had a chance to interrogate him. If something like this happened… Well, it _happened,_ and the perpetrators in question were punished in secret. There hadn’t been social media to blow a gasket over the situation. Enough money to a friendly publisher (or blackmailing a hostile one), and newspapers printed what they wanted them to print. The same with TV-stations and their broadcasts.

“Does Steve claim I did something inappropriate?” Zemo’s voice jolted him back from his musings. “Is that why one of those lab coats tried to mask a rape kit as a normal examination procedure?”

Fury swore in his mind. Zemo’s trademark smirk was suddenly absent, as well as the harsh and heavy German accent. He had gone under again before Fury had a chance… Or maybe this was better, Fury thought. This kind of Zemo could be persuaded to co-operate if Fury could handle this sudden change in his demeanor. (Fury refused to call it “spooky” even if that was how it felt.)

“It just”, Fury said as Zemo didn’t continue. Hydra commander had sounded so… sad? “You have awful lot of bruises and not all of them can be explained by training sessions.”

“No? Or maybe it depends on the session. You should have seen his neck and tits after we studied love bites with my father’s Kama Sutra... But you can’t. He heals so fast.”

Yes, Fury had walked right into that one. As it happens, this version of Zemo didn’t have any filters.

“So there were different kinds of...training sessions?” Fury had to make sure.

“There were. I can tell which marks are from one or the other… God, I really hate hand-to-hand combat, but Steve insisted. He said it is shameful that an officer is helpless without his blades. You are not going to rip him a new one because he shared his training secrets with me, aren’t you? He just… He believes in me so much, keeps telling me how I could be a better person. That if I just give it a try I might like to be on the side of the angels. How even the nastiest scumbags deserve a second chance. He said he had seen my soul and I’m beautiful.”

Zemo let out a joyless laugh, his eyes swimming full of unshed tears. It was the most agitated Fury had seen Hydra Commander. Almost like he was going to…

A cold threat stabbed Fury into his middle section. “Zemo”, Fury warned, his voice hissing with urgency. “Be very careful what you are going to say next.”

Zemo blinked as a slow trail of blood run over his upper lip and chin. Fury hoped the dazed look on his face was one of the comprehension. His limbs had been strapped by the restraints, but the left hand had enough leash he could wipe his face himself and drop the used tissues into the waste basket near his hospital bed.

“Sorry, Fury. That wasn’t anything you should witness. I have been strangely emotional lately. What do you want me to say then?”

“It has been almost a week when you both went AWOL. I bet you have been doing more than training and… training. Like what on earth did you two idiots concoct to annoy the world’s number one evil scientist? And why are you having one of Rogers’s precious dog tags? He almost bit Coulson’s fingers off when he tried to touch them.”

Zemo smiled meekly. Blushed like a bride. In a way that was maybe appropriate.

*

It wasn’t a bad dream. Not like the ones Steve had occasionally, nightmares in which he was drowning in the cockpit of the airplane, trapped inside his broken, paralyzed body. He could feel the ice growing around him, filling his eyes with its sharp, cold needles and freezing the blood in his veins.

His brains knew the feeling was only a fabrication. A trick his subconscious made up from the stories of the agents who had found him posing as a human ice pop. But nothing changed the fact that after those dreams he could feel cold for hours. Falling asleep again would be impossible. He would rise, wander down the corridors of SHIELD compound until he hit the level four restroom and its well-stocked fridge. He needed milk and a bit of cinnamon and sugar, like his mother used to make it (when they could afford the ingredients). It wouldn’t make him fall asleep faster, hell, because of his weird metabolism it didn’t even make him warmer. It helped anyhow by whispering into his ear about closeness and care of the people long gone (eight months ago).

This one was a silly dream, but it wasn’t a bad one. No sir, no evil bone in it. Some boning, probably.

In a dream there was a place… somewhere in Europe, it felt… different than home, not in a way he could explain. It was not France… it had not been Hector, but something with a similar name… Helmut?

It had to be a dream. First of all, why would he be in Germany and in a castle of all places? (Maybe too much King Arthur tales as a kid.) Odd behaving people were also typical for a dream. A naked old man was a butler, and then there was that woman (a gardener?) who roamed in the near forest, hugging the trees… And there had been his teammates also, Natasha and Tony. They were in Quinjet going (home?)… Natasha talked about a ballet lesson with her… daughter, perhaps. And Tony did what he was usually doing in his spare time minus underwear models.

In a dream it was sometimes possible to change your sex, but that was not the case in this one; Steve was a man. Nevertheless, it was a husband the prince was looking for, not a wife. Steve and this prince (a baron?) were so besotted with each others they were talking about engagement. That seemed natural in that dream world, and Steve didn’t mind to be the one with a lost glass slipper. This Helmut was so… and then he started giving Steve gifts in full compliance with his station: a ring which was obviously a family heirloom even if Helmut didn’t mention the fact (his fiance was so modest and down to earth!) and then there had been a… a unicorn? (He was actually one of Zemo’s fierce and prized hunting steeds called Eisen and not amused to be a victim of the stable master’s fantasy streak.)

The unicorn had been steel gray with a gleaming silver horn, its tale and mane shining in every color of the rainbow. A ring… it was as if Steve could still feel it under his shirt. As if it had been all real, and he had bedded a guy. (Oh god, he had never used a bed so creatively!) Never mind they had had some guide books. (Erotic books! _Let’s try that one, Steve. You’re bendy enough, you can be in that one._ ) There were texts and drawings which didn’t make his skin crawl like some of those blue movies Tony had recommended watching.

Such a nice dream, though. The waking up, that was another matter.

“Captain... Cap! Talk to me, soldier.”

It was… Fury. And he was addressing him. Again. Steve couldn’t say it was worse than waking up after the ice. He was used to being hurt. Physical pain was nothing. Restrains could be weakened, he could escape them as he had escaped Hydra lair after the mission gone wrong. It didn’t matter that the manacles around his ankles and wrists were metal instead of leather or rope. It didn’t matter. He was Captain America, he didn’t need weapons, he was a weapon, all he needed was his body and his will of iron. But his limbs felt so weak. And his will was in turmoil. It was hard to concentrate when his mind was bombarded with outlandish scenes.

(His body… on the bed in the castle of his dead nemesis… the mattress softer than mother’s tit… a firm body beneath him, touching him, kissing him in unseemly but delicious places…)

As he came to his senses he was gaining his memories faster, but the summary remained the same. Steve had been intimate with a man, who was not only a terrorist leader in his own right but also a great grandson of Heinrich Zemo, that dead goddammit fanatic shithead Nazi scum. The worst of it wasn’t even the physical acts, but the knowledge how he had been completely enamored of the guy for some reason. He had regarded him as his prince. Steve had a nasty feeling if Zemo had asked him to hurt the agents or his teammates, he would have done it in a heartbeat, without thinking much about the act afterwards. Really, how twisted was that? Could this be the bad boy syndrome Janet (the Wasp) always talked about? (If that was even a real disease, anyway.)

Steve opened his eyes. There was no nice room this time, the place looked more like a prison cell (which was now appropriate, Steve had to admit.) The walls were painted with some vague greenish color and the floor was covered with brown tiles, they were easy to wash afterwards. (Yes, there was a drain on the floor. It was like that Hydra lab again. Hello pliers, goodbye nails!)

There was not enough soap in the world to get him clean. Because the truth was, that dream land, whether it was Hydra’s bizarre plan to soil the reputation of Captain America or just some freak accident with alien bacteria, it still felt like everything he had ever hoped for. And what was not to like? There had been comic book adventures which got nobody killed. Somebody beside him in fight and love. A poor, fatherless guy from Brooklyn had gotten his fairy tale prince, half of the kingdom. A perfect life, tailored for him. It had felt like home made in heaven.

It had all been a lie of his own making. His mind had made that up. It was no use to accuse somebody else about the situation. Steve had exposed himself, wide open for anybody to use and abuse. Obviously SHIELD had no evidence of his past transactions. Now there was abundance of incriminating facts.

“Rogers, I know you’re awake. We monitor your body with the best equipment Doctor Richards could supply. Those white coats over there can predict your sneeze ten minutes before that happens.”

A careful hand touched his shoulder. Steve bit his teeth together; he didn’t try to start back, but Fury must have felt how his muscles worked to keep his body still. He stepped away and took his touch with him. Steve opened his eyes, and Fury was now about six feet away on his left side.

“You are going to rough talk me into my senses, aren’t you Fury?” His voice sounded peculiar, as if he had screamed himself hoarse a little while ago. Maybe he was. “You should have done that before you let your agents take photos of me acting like a two-bit idiot.”

“You remember.”

Fury sounded surprised. For some reason that didn’t annoy Steve though everything else in the situation was ready to tick him off. “Not so much after you tranq me at the landing. But before that… I remember every second. It doesn’t mean I could have done anything about it. I didn’t want to”, Steve added honestly.

“No harm done, then.”

That was a wrong thing to say. Fury’s expression told he knew that when the words left his mouth.

“Fucking funny”, Steve snorted. Swearing again, those adrenaline levels quickly rising. “As fun as all those lies you folks tell yourself about that thing… whatyoucallit… _equality_.”

Maybe Fury’s cheek jumped a little as he heard the venom in his voice. There had been… lectures after Steve had screwed up his extempore rescue mission.

It had happened only a few weeks after his resurrection. Not a villainous deed, no terrorist attack, but an accident, an ordinary gas leak. Natasha and he had been in a shopping mall when there was an explosion which shattered windows and made those devices in the cars shout alarm almost as loud as any air raid siren. (First he had thought that had to be it, a bombing.) They rushed to the street, trying to help people among the fire and collapsing buildings.

Let’s just say Steve’s potty mouth had something to do with the rigmarole. Afterwards, there had been lectures about that equality thing. Lots of it. And then, just two weeks after that incident Steve had been in the City Library and visited a cafe on his way back to the SHIELD compound.

There had been two men at the table near Steve. They had their laptop computers, maybe they were doing work, but what got Steve attention was the way they acted towards each others. Steve was not shy to touch the people he trusted. Bucky had hugged him regularly, and Steve had hold the hands of scared, wounded soldiers when they waited opportunity to escape from under the fire. But those men at the table touched and smiled at each other like sweethearts and they did it openly as that SHIELD lecturer had insisted was possible in this brave new world. It was possible, but everybody didn’t like it. There were three power-suited guys standing in the line who obviously didn’t. Sometimes people thought Steve had enhanced hearing, but he really didn’t, he was just good at lip reading. Their meaning, some of the words were similar than Steve had heard before, in another time, in another world. When a man was physically weak or acted weird, he was fairy. When a thing was bad it was gay. (It took Steve a while to understand that one.)

Slowly Steve started to collect other signs which told him this future world was not as shiny and perfect as the SHIELD lecturer had wanted him to believe. From the news he learned how a white police officer could shot an unarmed black teen and escape the blame with a slap on the wrist. (Sometimes even not that much.) Nothing new in that one either.

The leader of SHIELD black ops team had seemed a rough man, but in their kind of work it should have been an advantage. Steve too thought so, at least until he heard how Rumlow and his men talked about female agents and especially SHIELD Assistant Director Maria Hill.

_Somebody should rape that bitch._ _Teach her a lesson._

That was nothing unheard again. It was exactly the same speech Steve had witnessed seventy years ago, some men muttering about his friend Peggy. How those men had felt dishonored as she took charge. How they have that one time almost violated…

Those lessons SHIELD had arranged for him had taught Steve fancy names like racism, chauvinism, and heterosexism. They were nothing like artsy isms he had known in his previous life, but their basic message to him was the same old, same old.

Jesus H. Christ, how Steve despised bullies!

“Yeah, it is far from perfect”, Fury interrupted his train of thought. “I’m sorry Cap that we disappoint you. That we are only humans, that we has no chance to create the utopia you read about your penny novels. There will always be those who hate, but there are also those who not, and we try to keep them as a majority. Times change, soldier. You have seen that woman work…”

“What do you think my mother did”, Steve hissed. “After my good for nothing dad run away and left her with a bastard child? She fucking worked harder than any man until it took her to the early grave.”

“Captain… Steve. Yes, that was a bad example. But you see women in charge, people of color doing things they didn’t do back in thirties. If you had been keener to learn to use the Internet, you could see congresswomen and female senators, same-sex couples getting married… hell, there have been a half black guy keeping a presidency for two terms. Lots of things that were unthinkable a half a century ago.”

He could use the Internet. How come everyone always forgot he had been sickly and weak before the serum? All he had then was his brains, his keen mind and quick wits. But to use search words he wanted to use and expose himself to Fury’s spies? No thank you. He usually looked only at the news, and maybe a bit art. Technophobe and bore, that was Captain America, when he was not in a mission. That nurtured image had been one of his best defenses.

“I’m not talking about any of that. I have seen anything goes. It’s popular even. They made it very clear from the beginning with their comments about my America’s ass.”

Now was not the time to ruminate the injustice of his life in general. Fury stood there, waiting. Nothing to lose any more, Steve could as well give him the truth.

“What then?” Fury was asking.

“You.”

“Me?” For Steve’s astonishment Fury sounded disappointed. Steve had no idea what the Director was thinking. He didn’t seem to mind Steve being a fairy (or he pretended well that he didn’t). Maybe he was still sore about Steve calling him a negro? Or about that video a bystander shot about Steve’s first rescue mission (or rescue screw-up)?

“You. Officers.” Steve couldn’t keep the venom leaking into his voice again. “The leaders of this special branch. Your rich investors. People like Tony Stark. Playboy and libertine. Hands always where they don’t belong. I will not…”

_Oh god._ That was saying too much already.

“You will not what?” Fury asked, looking sharp again. Oh god. Steve was such a dud, he couldn’t keep even his own damn mouth in line. Feeling a tell-tale itch, he tried to blink the water back under the lid, but a single tear escaped, leaving a wet trail on his cheek.

Fury was coming closer again. Steve’s fingers went numb when a dark panic seized his body. Steve was like captured Samson, but he was unworthy, God was not granting him power to smite his enemies. The metal restrainers moved but they didn’t budge. He spat at his Delilah’s face. Let it be his final act of useless resistance. The frantic voices around him sounded coming from the bottom of a deep well. He didn’t understand the words, not really.

_He is hurting himself! He’s pulling his hand off the socked. Unlock the restrainers!_

_But sir! He could still be under the influence. We can’t give him more sedative, he will react badly._

_Open the damn thing! It’s obvious Zemo’s influence has ended. He is having a panic attack. Even a guy with only one eye can see a sexual based trauma and you locked him ass up, Jesus Christ!_

Those mighty pillars had fallen down by Samson’s push, crushing the biblical hero and his enemies alike. Steve was not granted such a luxury. The floor didn’t open and hide him from view of Fury and the disturbed lab assistant. The restrainers let him free and he fell on the floor, ready in a combat stance.

“At ease, soldier”, Fury was saying. “Nobody will touch you.”

It took lots of work to leave Steve out of breath. His heart was hopping around in his chest cavity. “L-little late for that, do you think. Is Zemo…”

“He is locked up nice and tight.”

_You promise_ , some tiny and quivering part of Steve wanted to make sure. He bit his teeth together not to utter the words.

“Cap… Steve”, Fury said after the silence was getting more and more uncomfortable. “How are...”

“I’m fine.”

“Sorry, but I doubt that”, Fury sighed. “Let’s get out of here. You need something solid to eat. And a shower and some new clothes would be nice.”

He had soiled himself like some drunken sod. The familiar, repugnant stench almost made him teary again. His left hand was still hosting a peripheral line. The white coated man took it away. Steve noticed his feet had started to shake.

“Easy, you have been in that thing almost constantly for eight days. I wonder how you can stand at all.”

He had gone frigid as Fury grabbed his arm, but he let the man keep his grip. It was either that or fall on his ass on the floor. “A week?” he wondered.

“A week after the doctors deducted that more of those horse sedatives would give you a brain damage. Before that five days.”

Almost a fortnight. Steve had no idea what had happened in the meantime. “Did I...”

“Don’t worry, you couldn’t do anything to anybody. You were drugged up to the eyeballs or in that thing, which was originally designed for lifeforms like Skrulls… or Doctor Richards. As you noticed it adapts very efficiently.”

The strange metal contraption looked like a giant spider resting its many legs. Steve honestly hoped he would never ever be near that thing again.

“It did swell”, he admitted. “Too bad it doesn’t come with a bathroom.”

Fury huffed as if trying to choke a laugh. “Jesus, Rogers… can you walk? We can get you a wheelchair.”

Fury was keeping the door open for Steve. They came to the corridor. “I think I’ve better move my muscles… Not in Kansas anymore, I assume. Which way to my quarters?”

“We are in a quarantine facility in Texas. Natasha and Tony are not here at the moment, but you all have your bunks in the C-wing, in your regular order.”

The team. Steve hadn’t asked anything about them. Some leader he was. “How are they? Are they both alright?”

“They were under the influence much shorter time than you, and the doctors theorized their withdrawal symptoms were milder because of that. Natasha took only eighteen hours to recover, Tony a little more than thirty six.”

“And Zemo?”

Fury sighed. He seemed to do that a lot while being with Steve. “We will talk more about things after you have freshened up.”

That didn’t sound ominous at all. They had come to Steve’s room. Fury was still hovering when Steve pulled the door close behind him. Maybe it was impolite, but he was tired and besides himself with worry.

He took a hot shower but before that he rinsed his soiled sweats and underwear. Some small animal had taken a dump on his tongue and then died and rotted away on that same spot. Steve brushed his teeth, and then he drank five glasses of water just for the joy of it.

New clothes had been left on the bed. There were standard SHIELD sweats and shirts. There was no uniform. No shield. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but still it kind of was. He felt choking again. No cold sea water this time, but a feeling. He was reverting to his old weaknesses. The humiliation of it all was almost too much to bear and he sat on the bed and hid his face in his hands.

Then he cried, really cried the second time after they had saved him from the ice.


	7. Ways to Keep a Man (Alive)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury keeps rewriting Captain America’s personal files. Rogers doesn’t approve of Fury’s plans for Zemo and things start to go south again.

_Jesus fuck._

Fury was in his office. He tried to concentrate on the task in hand, prepare himself for a moment Rogers would walk through his door, but all he could feel was an agitation deep as Mariana Trench rising from his gut.

He could ask Maria Hill… No, the assistant director wasn’t any more approachable than Fury himself. Maybe he should contact a SHIELD psychologist… No he shouldn’t. Fury was sure neither of them wanted extra ears to listen that particular conversation, no matter how favorable the shrink’s security clearance would have been.

Fury had been ridiculously mournful, a sad little boy over the fact his childhood idol didn’t seem to like him. Now he knew. It hadn’t been him personally (only… maybe a little). It hadn’t been about racism either. It was his office. His authority. His power over Rogers. It didn’t make things clear and orderly like a command hierarchy was supposed to do. For Rogers it probably felt like a maze, a trap without a way out.

He read again the files about General Markham, who had been the military chief of the Super Soldier program back in the 40s. There was nothing sinister in those files, but certainly something very unsavory had happened. Rogers suspicion and fear towards authority figures had not begun with Zemo; he could be a trigger, but not a cause.

_The leaders of this special branch. Your rich investors. Peoples like Tony Stark. Playboy and libertine. Hands always where they don’t belong. I will not…_

Fury should be planning. He should be thinking how to use this to their advantage, but how could he when his stupid old heart was bleeding with Rogers. He wouldn’t use this against the man. Even if it would be the last thing he did, he would look that Rogers was treated right, that he could get some closure, some kind of justice… General Markham was long dead, but he had either known about abuse or being giving orders. What the fuck had those idiots done to Rogers... Or that was a stupid question. Captain America, the idol of the war time nation, the defender of the white, middle class nuclear family and its picket fence, was secretly a deviant. According the law and the social norms of the time, he was a potential criminal just by breathing Lord’s sweet air. What had his superiors done? Answer was in Roger’s eyes, so full of cold fury and disgust with a hint of fear. They had done… everything. Every miserable thing in their power to make Rogers feel fully the vulnerability of his position.

Nonetheless, Steve Rogers didn’t slink into Fury’s office like a dog who had pissed on the living room floor. Fury observed him a while through the door cam before letting him in. There was Rogers with his back ramrod straight like always, his eyes intelligent and sharp, and if they were a little red around the edges that was just reassuring; Fury didn’t like to think Captain America was an unfeeling sociopath.

It was better not to sugarcoat anything. A strong spirit like Rogers would not like to be coddled or pitied. That was not how men acted during his time. Empathy was of course another matter. It was universal and not timebound.

“Please, sit down”, Fury said as Rogers executed a parade rest in front of his desk. Rogers sat. “Did you get anything to eat? We can order something from the kitchen.”

“Thanks, but I ate in the canteen. Sir.”

 _Alright_ , Fury sighed in his mind. _Let the fun begin._

“I asked you to come because we need to discuss about what happened with Commander Zemo. That in turn raised some other questions, which I would like to address first. During my years in SHIELD I have read many reports from the men who were supposed to be supervising the Super Soldier program, and I have started wondering how much of those files were inadequate or plain misrepresentation. That in turn would raise a question how many facts in your personal history are actually true, or is the most of it only hogwash from the propaganda department. I want to be honest with you. This situation is a PR nightmare waiting to happen, and I want to have all the facts on the table before we start planning our strategy.”

Rogers looked surprised. “You are asking me, sir? Why to trust me over all those fancy scientists and officers? I have not exactly been… straight with you. Sir.”

“Jesus, Rogers.” Fury couldn’t help his involuntary laugh. “That pun was old when… Well, for you it is probably a new one. Do you want I save your testimony or are we talking off the record this time?”

Roger’s usual muted smile blossomed into a toothy grin. “Like you wouldn’t save it anyway… sir.”

“And if I gave you my word?”

“Then you’re making me act impolite by not believing a blatant lie. The thought is very sweet, but we both know that I would not recognize all of your science fiction recording equipment. My techno savvy was frozen after I learned to use a phonograph.”

“All right… you want to start? Or would you like I make questions?”

“I can start. You can make question. Whatever you fancy.”

“Let me guess then. Sometime during the program General Markham found out about you. About you being gay, I mean. It ended badly, I think.”

“Find out.” Rogers shook his head like wondering. “He didn’t find about anything he didn’t already know. Why do you think I was chosen to the Super Soldier program?”

“You tried to enlist even after you were rejected again and again. The chief scientist of the program, Doctor Erskine, liked you spirit.”

“Yes. Official canon”, Rogers huffed, an ugly smile spreading over his lips. “Abraham Erskine was a Jew. And a German refugee. He was useful to them, but not exactly popular. He was a traitor, not believed reliable. Why would they have listened to him?”

“Well, then.”

“We can start by that recruiting office. How I tried ten times and was turned away until I met Erskine. That seems to be an essential part of the legend. What I don’t understand... What the hell you lot think was so heroic or peculiar about my urge to act like any other man? After Pearl Harbor... I didn’t visit ten recruiting office, but four, I think. Erskine didn’t find me there. When I met his recruiters, I was in jail.”

“Was it that infamous temper of yours?” Fury asked, trying to play it light, because Rogers had confirmed something he had suspected all along. (Please god, don’t let our national hero be a rapist or a murderer or a child molester!)

“No, they hit me with vagrancy charges”, Rogers said, reading Fury’s thoughts. “It was... When Bucky left. My mother had been dead for a few years, and we didn’t have any savings. Bucky wanted to enlist, so much, and he had taken care of me his whole life. I couldn’t deny him that one thing.”

That had been the first time. Steve had known the army wouldn’t take him, but he had to try… The most humiliating thing was not the pity or sneer in other men’s eyes when the army doctor berated him about wasting his time. It was his best friend averting his gaze, knowing he was tied to Steve like a home bound wife, and still hoping... Steve couldn’t do that to him. So he got a gal, and talked about her for three weeks straight. He got more hours in his job, he was in a shoe factory that time. He ignored Bucky completely and finally, his best friend was assured Steve could manage his life, and Bucky was able to leave. Of course Steve did see him later, but… And of course, he had lied again. He had no gal, he made it all up, and that job in the factory, it was no good for his asthma, but by his cheer determination he survived it all those weeks he needed to let Bucky go. Then Steve fall ill again, and it was a bad one. Everyone thought he was going to die, and maybe he would have without his neighbor who was an old friend of his mother. But she was not doing well herself, couldn’t offer any monetary help. Steve finally lost his room, not being able to pay the rent. Not able to pay much anything.

“So vagrancy charges...”

“Not about drunkenness. I can’t get drunk now, but I have never liked the taste of liquor. Only beer… I was sober, but living in the street. Not able to keep a job, because I was not able to breath most of the time. I would have probably died there after a few weeks, had my mother’s friend not came up with a solution again."

And Steve had thought, why not. If it was good enough for his god-fearing mother, it would be like spitting on her grave to claim it was not good enough for him. That’s why, while listing his sins, he always left this one out. Because he thought it was not fair to tell any Mary Magdalene _sin no more_ if she had to look after her kids. It wouldn’t have been fair to say that to his mother. Steve was not stupid. She worked hard, got two jobs, but those paid only their food and clothes and his medication. She earned the roof over their heads in a more old-fashioned way. And why not. Because of Steve everybody called her slut and whore anyway. It wouldn’t have made any difference. Their landlord’s visits wouldn’t have made any difference.

Fury didn’t need more hints to see the direction this story was taking.

“So my mother’s friend, Fianna, she knew a guy. Who knew a guy. Who was looking for a tenant, a young man, preferably a blond one. I was young, I was blond, and if he thought I was too tall for ideal Ganymedes or a little too much on a scrawny side, he wasn’t nasty about it. Just fed me until I started to look human again. It was a nice room. My landlord, I called him Carl, even if we both knew that was not his real name. He was an older guy, like some thirty years older, I think. I liked him, and I liked the things he did with me. But I didn’t love him. Didn’t tell him I didn’t either.”

Rogers sighed and fell silent, and Fury thought all those sappy stories about Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter. How they had even made a movie of that doomed fantasy romance, when the reality would have offered so much more fuel to people’s imagination.

“Anyway, that was a swell deal. I was getting physically better, so I tried enlisting again, not to prove myself a man anymore, I had already proved many, many times that I wasn’t. Some lingering quilt perhaps. Like dying a hero’s death would wash all my dishonest deeds away. I tried different jobs… but something always aggravated my asthma. A few days, maybe a week, and then I was half dead again. Maybe it was God’s way to say I was born to suck cock.”

As if underlining his words, Rogers did something very juvenile with his cheek and his tongue. Though Fury had seen the gesture many times, he still felt… it was like seeing his grandmother flashing her naked breasts at the dinner table. (Thank god, Rogers was not in his uniform!)

“But never mind that… The jail. It was a stupid co-incident. I was trying a real job again, and I was feeling so exhausted I collapsed in the street in my way home. It was getting late, and stupid, brave Carl came looking for me. He found me too, and some time later probably hoped he wouldn’t have, because we both ended into the can. Carl was, you know, not like me. He couldn’t play a good Catholic boy scout even if his life depended on it. He sounded and acted quite nancy, and the police thought he was there in the alley trying to get his dick wet. And well, he was of course, but not in a harsh way. He treated me with so much respect I felt like that witty, sophisticated _heta_ _i_ _ra_... What was her name again?”

“Don’t look at me”, Fury huffed. “I don’t have what you would call a classical education. I didn’t recognize any of those paintings you and Zemo were looking at the museum.”

“I have no education either”, Rogers admitted. “But I was always bedridden, always reading. That painting was Monet, probably. We talked a lot about him. That ancient Greek courtesan, she was Gnathaena.”

“So”, Fury mused. “You were in the can, about to get charged with... what then? Prostitution? Being homeless? Being unemployed? Or maybe all those three?”

“That will remain forever secret, because that night Erskine’s recruiting tour arrived looking for fresh meat for their mincer.”

“Jesus Christ, Rogers.” Fury felt his lips twisting as if they were tasting something sour. “You are not saying US government carried out potentially lethal human trials with prisoners and vagabonds?”

Rogers shook his head. “Please, don’t downplay yourself for my sake. I bet they were doing nothing more horrifying than the things you do around here. I can’t speak for the others, but nobody made me do anything against my will. After we moved to the camp and I had talked with Erskine a few times, he tried to make me change my mind. I volunteered to the test, that much is right. But I didn’t do it thinking I would become a super soldier. I knew what was supposed to happen. Erskine told me it so many words. He liked me, wanted me to bail. Said that I was better than all those delinquents, cowards, and negros they usually volunteered to their experiments to better the formula. He said I couldn’t probably handle even the first hormone shots. That I should go home and study art and live… Live! Like there was so much life in my asthmaridden body. To idle my days away as a catamite of some rich, married guy when much better men than me sacrificed everything for their homes and country.”

“Well, we have all been very lucky he respected your view”, was Fury’s diplomatic opinion. “The research reports give us lots of details of the process… and nothing at the same time. They had your weight and blood pressure measured once a day, and we have tens of pages of your diet or exercise plans, but that was not all of it, was it? If you were the only one who managed to change… I think we can forget the potentially lethal aspect of the program. They all died, didn’t them?”

“I certainly hope so. Their screams…” Steve halted and swallowed, dropping his gaze down his lap, before continuing with hushed tones. “The pain, it wasn’t something from this world. Sometimes I wonder… Maybe I survived because I had lived with pain my whole life. During those months I still hoped I would have listened to Erskine. My new form… it was like a mold I was supposed to fill at the very beginning of my existence, it felt so right. The prize we had to pay… the every living moment was pure agony. They gave us morphine shots to ease the pain, but only enough we could eat and keep it down. More, and it would have messed the test results, they explained. Eat and eat and eat and exercise. At first I screamed myself hoarse every night until little by little my new body adjusted. Those others… We were there to make a sacrifice that Erskine could complete the serum. They didn’t expect the serum to work on any of us, and they were lost as it finally did. They couldn’t find the reason what was so special about me. Erskine had some theories, but he couldn’t finish them before he was killed by a Hydra spy. His team still tried, they picked up the best soldiers they had, but those guys died like all the others. That made Markham mad. Frustrated. I was everything they had hoped for but not quite. They wanted an army and got only one guy. And I wasn’t... They said I could not possibly have right mentality for the battle. That in spite of my new abilities I was basically a feeble-minded and cowardly fairy. The tests continued, though. I was not allowed to leave the premises expect if they needed me at their parties, to pimp me to some rich pervert to sell war bonds. Or that was the plan, but it changed when we were in that entertaining tour in Europe.”

Fury nodded. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

They both knew how the story continued. A regular happy end. Captain America saved the day, saved the American POWs, was united with his best friend Bucky and got a new commission.

“As you know, during the trials I had become friends with Peggy Carter. She was an Englishwoman working with SIS, British foreign intelligence service. Markham was happy to wash his hands of me, but there was still a list of rules if I wanted to work within any military organization. For example, I was not to associate with other soldiers. They were afraid what a degenerate with superpowers could do to men’s morals. I hated them most of all about that. Talking like I was a rapist or a monster, but they… I don’t know, maybe they were not so wrong after all.”

Not this again, Fury sighed in his mind. First Zemo and now… Rogers’s tale, no scratch that, the social porn reality of Rogers’s _life_ would have made a producer of some seamy TV-show drool, but he had recited his hardships with his usual cool grace. Until now he was. Now Rogers looked like he would have preferred to find something to smash.

“Steve, stop that thought right away”, Fury said, his voice sharp. There was always a possibility Rogers would choose to cry, and Fury was awful in those situations. “You and Zemo were not... Steve, there are things which are not anybody’s fault. This is one of those. And in this particular case… Let me tell you something funny. When we raid Hydra bases, we literally search every closet and every computer. Could you guess what we will find? Porn dashes? Secret cookie jars? Letters from home? ( _Dear_ _David_ _,_ _we_ _saw_ _on_ _the news_ _how_ _your team_ _destroyed that ghastly government building._ _Y_ _our dad and I are so prou_ _d_ _of you..._ _)_ _”_

Rogers snorted. “The first one probably.”

“Yes, porn. Videos in the files marked “in_the_shooting_range”, magazines under the mattresses, photos on the phone… Their girlfriends and wives, Nazi pin-up girls, but for the last couple of years, some of them have been also about Natasha or Janet… not the real them, of course”, Fury explained. “It’s not only Hydra thing. There is lots of porn where actors are made to look like popular superheroes. Can you guess to where this story is going, Rogers?”

If Fury had needed any other proof he was not dealing with some delicate house plant, he had gotten it. Rogers didn’t even blush when he voiced his deduction. “You are saying they have those videos about me too?”

“Videos, pictures… I have seen a real-sized doll made of you, it had your shield and all the… works. For those Nazi scumbags you are an ultimate forbidden fruit in every meaning of the words. A whole branch of porn industry lives by your image. Steve, you have no idea… Helmut Zemo, a wanted terrorist leader and Hydra Commander, he got his free rein to do anything and what was his secret wish? To torture the living daylights out of you? No, of course not. The most hideous thing he did was to take selfies. Do you remember? It seemed you were cooking spaghetti.”

“I remember. He told me he will send them to his godfather. Zola was not amused. That’s why he put those killer lizards after us.”

“To his… Zola is his godfather?”

“Yes”, Rogers said. “Zemo calls him Uncle Arnim.”

That was a new one, even for Fury. It was odd to think that human robot as anybody’s family member. It had seemed as if Zola had left such weak humane ties a long ago. It raised a question what else Rogers had accidentally found out. That holiday away from their common senses had lasted almost a week.

“Then we can only be thankful Zemo didn’t send those pics to Red Skull”, Fury mused. “Hopefully Zola doesn’t do that either. If Red Skull gets a sniff of those Lady and the Tramp impressions of yours, we will find ourselves dealing with something more severe than outdated androids and blob fish looking sea monsters.”

“You have talked to Zemo”, Rogers realized. “He is back to normal now?”

Fury refused to moisture his lips. He was an accomplished liar, but in some way Rogers seemed to deduce the truth of his tales too easily. (Maybe because their dear Captain suspected everybody anytime.) Fortunately, he was saved from further explanations by an incoming call.

“What is it, Doctor Perry?”

It was Zemo. The thing they had talked about. It was time. Too soon, Fury realized. Rogers needed some closure.

“How is he? Still in the La-La-Land?”

Zemo was lucid, but Doctor Perry was about to give him sedative to ease the pain.

“Halt that, but do what you have to do to keep him conscious. I’m coming with Captain.”

Fury closed the connection and turned to Rogers who had already stood up. “We are going to meet Zemo?”

“Yes. Doctor Perry tries to keep him conscious. He is… He is the patient zero. That means...”

“I know what that means”, Rogers interrupted. “It is bad, then. Is he going to die?”

“We don’t know”, Fury admitted. “Apparently so. He is still bleeding. We have no idea what to make about his condition, all we know that quarantine is the only option. You affected the whole castle personnel and half of the near village. They all recovered, but if you think about a thing like this as pandemic...”

“Lots of people would die.”

“You would think so. Not everybody is as cavalier as you two while singing the Looney Tunes.”

“And that doctor lady is really doing everything she can? I don’t… I remember the way she looked at me. Like I was something to put under her microscope. You have an alien who can manipulate weather, you have a growth serum and a flying knight who shots killer beams from his hands. My kind of enhanced humans are hopelessly outmatched. Outdated. Nostalgia. Nothing more.”

Rogers had fastened his gait and Fury had to take a few running steps to stay side by side.

“Steve. Slow down”, he said, grabbing the younger man’s arm. “Even if you want to quit the Avengers Initiative, we are not going to lock your up in the lab somewhere. If you really want to leave… Well, you have finished your tour. You have filled every contract and every promise you made. And you are right, we have others now. We just thought… But if you want out, you can do that. I promise. I will make sure you’ll get a full pension and also a full pay with inflation adjustment for all those years you were entrapped by ice.”

Rogers halted in the middle of corridor. “That... that is very generous of you, sir. I will think about it”, he said. Then he smiled that muted smile of his, which he did to close everybody out of the private joke that was his life. Fury had no idea what was going on in Rogers’s mind, but the little boy inside him felt a painful jolt in his heart. No, Fury wanted to scream. No, you can’t quit, you’re Captain America! You are forever! Reasonable, adult Fury hushed him. Generals had no use for warriors who had lost their lust for the fight. They were going to be a liability.

He left Rogers in front of the glass wall of the lab room. What Rogers saw would make him wonder, but that couldn’t be helped. Zemo didn’t look like a patient who had gotten two weeks worth of the best care the government money can pay. Doctors were pumping in blood, medicine, and fluids through IV and he had a nasogastric tube for nutrition solution, but nothing seemed to keep his condition from deteriorating. Fury wondered if Zemo’s labored breathing reminded the soldier of his pre-serum life of misery.

When they were in a suitable distance that not even Roger’s enhanced hearing couldn’t help his eavesdropping, Fury continued his conversation with Doctor Perry. Talking about liabilities, Zemo was like that, a big time, and they had made… arrangements. Fury signed Doctor Perry’s tablet, and that was it, one problem solved, other one brewing. Despite Doctor Perry’s struggle to keep Zemo conscious until Rogers had a chance to talk with him, the Hydra Commander was out of this world again. That was too bad, and Rogers would probably be disappointed but he could handle it. Fury had started to suspect there was nothing which could permanently scratch that old shield.

“What did she say?” Rogers asked when Fury returned to their observation point. “It doesn’t look good, does it?”

“It certainly doesn’t. Let him rest. I asked Doctor Perry alarm you when he wakes up.”

Rogers shook his head. He looked sad for some reason (there was plenty of those to choose). “I don’t think you understand. Nobody probably does, I myself can hardly… It was wonderful. That week in Germany, it was the most magnificent experience of my life. I never would have given it up voluntarily. I own him a huge gratitude. Most people can’t ever feel such a happiness and utter joy. No matter it was artificial.”

“If you want, you can thank him when he wakes up.”

“I don’t think I’ll have that chance. While I was looking… somebody in charge signed his death warrant.”

Fury didn’t get any other warning before Roger’s fist hit his jaw. While the blood was filling his mouth and his eyes tried to black out, Fury was able to make two deductions. First, though Rogers was obviously enraged he was able to hold back, not to break his opponent’s face or neck as could easily happen during the fight between a super soldier and an average human being. Second, how come any of those idiots he had put to babysit Rogers hadn’t reported back that their target was fluent in speechreading? Which carried Fury to the conclusion: oh god, this was a deep one. His hand tried instinctively grab his gun, which was just another mistake. (Keep those blunders coming! Six and you get one bashing for free!) Rogers’s jogging shoe, bruising three of his ribs, made that perfectly clear.

No use to pretend. He had signed a form which authorized Doctor Perry to give Zemo a lethal dose, but…

Yeah, _but_.

“Steve, you understood that wrong”, Fury stammered, spitting out blood and one of his damn teeth (a false one, fortunately. That one with his personal GPS device.) “You are not seeing the whole picture. I swear to you by holy mother and her son Jesus Christ…”

Rogers moved forward smooth and fast like a striking snake. The barrel of his own gun felt cold on his skin, but not as cold as Captain’s icy blue stare. There was no Rogers left in that gaze, those were the eyes of a mask which had been a final sight of so many enemy soldiers. That was what he had done to Rogers with his shadow games and plots, Rogers couldn’t distinguish an enemy from a friend.

“Don’t you dare to pull one over on me”, Rogers said, his voice surprisingly calm. “I see a picture all right. It’s the one where monsters wearing uniforms of United States army torture and kill people without a trial. Where director of some fishy-washy hus-hus organization can ask a doctor to remove an inconvenient POW from their hands like some hospital waste.”

“Steve, let me explain.”

“All right, Fury. Explain.”

He of course couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Not with all these ears around them. “Steve, you have to trust me with this one.”

And just the wrong words. You killed the last drop of trust in that man, Fury thought. He is in the maze of your making, seeing nothing but one way out. He doesn’t really care what happens to him anymore. If he turns that weapon towards his own head it’s your fault. You killed Captain America!

Fury told the little boy inside him to shut his mouth. He has no time to wallow in self-doubt, the sound of running boots told Fury a strike team was coming and their solution to the situation would be as simple as it was final. Before anything happened though, Fury was shouting them to back off.

“Doctor Perry, open the door. Let Rogers into the lab.”

“Now, Doctor Perry”, Fury repeated when nothing seemed to happen. It looked like the doctor couldn’t comprehend the logic of the action. “Director Fury, Captain is not wearing a hazmat suit. He will be infected.”

“Yes, he will”, Fury said. “But we can always disinfect him again. He has a thing to do.”

“A thing?”

“Just open the damn door, Doctor.”

The gun had been taken off from his forehead after he had ordered the strike team to stand down. They heard a faint mechanic click when the door leading to the containment field chambers opened. There would be four other doors and series of medical and magical procedures before Rogers would be in the lab. It took almost fifteen minutes and Fury used the time to read his emails from the tablet one of Doctor Perry’s lab assistants had brought him. (What else could he have done? Play Tetris, perhaps?) He had considered calling Stark or even Romanoff but deleted the idea. Rogers had kept the team at arm’s length for reasons which were now painfully obvious. He and Stark were not actual friends and the playboy inventor’s stupid jokes could make everything worse (if that was humanly possible.)

The corridor had started feeling crowded. Lab people and agents were loitering around, waiting the punchline of the situation. They had to be patient until Rogers opened the last door and his long strides carried him to the bedside of Hydra Commander.

“Did Captain America show us fingers?” Doctor Perry asked. The woman seemed mildly interested.

Fury had given his tablet to Agent Sanders. He was massaging his forehead, the same spot where the barrel had been pushed into his skin. “That was Rogers again. He is on a break from Captain.”

“But… This makes no sense. What is he doing?”

Doctor Perry looked honestly perplexed.

“He is doing what he always does”, Fury sighed. “He is doing a decent thing. Give him ten minutes. A short exposure to Zemo shouldn’t transport him into the wonderland for days, right? After that ten, knock them both out. You can push your strongest sleeping agent into ventilation system, I signed your form, no need to be careful with Zemo anymore.”

Sometimes it was better do and ask for forgiveness afterwards.

Fury was giving further instructions to Agent Sanders when two things happened. An alarm sounded, and when Fury turned to see what was going on, he saw Rogers lying on the lab floor.

“What is happening?” he demanded. Rogers’s ten minutes wasn’t up yet. It had to be something else. The peoples affected by whatever was ailing Zemo hadn’t lost their consciousness before. “Goddammit! Doctor Perry, what is that noise?”

Doctor Perry ignored him and continued tapping her tablet, awe and annoyance arm wrestling for the front seat on her face. “We have been so stupid”, she huffed when Fury had repeated his question. “That noise, Director, is our PSI alarm. It activates when psionic powers are used in these facilities. It’s not an unknown virus or an invasion of an alien entity. It was just Zemo all along. Somehow his powers obfuscated our equipment. We are getting some data now… My god, these readings are off the chart.”

A psychic… what the hell. “How is he doing that?” Fury demanded. “With the Moonstones? Does he still have those in his possession?”

“I don’t think so. This range of psionic energy is usually impossible to create artificially.”

Fury felt suddenly cold again. He had an ugly feeling he had been played and played good, and he didn’t like that one bit. “Are you saying Zemo is a mutant? How could our tests miss that?”

“It can be so called hidden X… or his powers actively altered our readings. Fascinating. In theory he could be altering our reality in this very moment and we just think we’re having this conversation. With psionic spectrum there are so many possibilities.”

“I am sure it’s very interesting, Doctor Perry”, he said quickly. It looked that Doctor Perry’s mind wasn’t with him anymore, thinking solutions to the problem in hand. Instead she was tapping furiously her tablet, likely making first drafts of her nth research paper. “The main question now should be how do we fight this thing.”

“I don’t think we do, Director”, she said, after studying the colorful charts on her tablet. “These are readings you usually see only in a big match.”

“And exactly how big are we talking about?”

“Like Dark Phoenix, Shadow King, and Kid Omega walk into a bar…”

Now she thought was a good time to develop some sense of humor? “Alright, I got the picture. Recommendations?”

“This is out of my field. Director, I strongly suggest you call in experts before things turn any worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are looping together. A magnificent trap, I never would have thought…”

“Doctor Perry!”

She started playing with the collar of her shirt, obviously trying to curb her enthusiasm onto a socially acceptable level. “I’m sorry, Director. If Zemo gets him completely under his control, he can merge with Rogers’s psyche, and with two such strong minds... Well, there have been incidents, psionic onslaughts, we call them. Very nasty. We can contain the lab with PSI dampeners for the time being, but that is just a band-aid. If this goes on not only Rogers but all the personnel in this base will be in danger.”

Could it really happen? Could Zemo...

Why was he so full of stupid questions? Since when had he put his trust in kindness of people or their common sense?

“Shouldn’t we be in red alert?” Agent Sanders interrupted his gloomy thoughts.

Yes, blazing lights and agents running around the corridors with guns in their hands. That would be a big help in this situation.

“Sir, the protocol...”

“That was a standard amount of my rhetorical whining, Agent Sanders. Please, proceed.”


	8. Little Steve in Slumberland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets almost too intimate knowledge about the goings-on in Helmut’s mindplace. Luckily, the turkey is missing from the scene.

How many times had Bucky and he sit like this? Bucky’s back against the headboard of Steve’s bed, Steve lying in his arms, struggling to take the next gasp of air.

“Breath, Zemo”, Steve ordered. “Breath. In and out. That’s right… again!”

That horrible, wheezing sound when lungs were trying to provide for a body, but didn’t quite manage it. Had it been like this for Bucky? Waiting that sound to end? Being scared of the silence and hoping it desperately at the same time, feeling guilty of his own thoughts. Hoping Steve to die. Hoping now Zemo to die, that those ugly sounds his sick body was making would end. He should have died, Steve knew. He should have died in his birth and saved Bucky and his mother from this horror. Zemo should die and save Steve from his memories.

Steve was crying. A god, what a spineless coward! What he thought he was doing. Steve had hit his commanding officer, bled him. Fury had that coming, they all had that coming, but shouldn’t Steve be a soldier? He was a soldier and he had hit his commanding officer, what that made him. Oh yeah, he knew. He was already a whore. A stinking, cowardly tart, and now he was a traitor too.

There was no choosing between his sins. All was clear now. After he died he would end into that final, deepest level of Hell as poet Dante described it. He would be inside ice again, what an irony! Steve would stand naked in a frozen lake, only his head above the ice, unable to bend his head and get even the smallest protection against the freezing wind.

“Shutupshutupshutup.”

 _Oh, what for?_ The little demon on his left shoulder whispered. _A big, brave soldier boy like you? Afraid of cold, aren’t we?_

“You are talking nonsense”, Steve argued. “I did what I had to do. Fury was going to kill Zemo.”

 _Zemo..._ the little demon chuckled. _A_ _Nazi_ _terrorist and a murderer…_ _that Zemo?_ _And_ _did you_ _save him then?_ _During that_ _seventy years_ _,_ _did_ _you_ _learn to fly and got a heat vision?_ _Y_ _ou_ _broke_ _you both out of the SHIELD base_ _like a regular superman_ _, right? No, I didn’t think so._ _Your imprudent act_ _was_ _only_ _a useless gesture._

That is where the little demon went wrong, because nothing was more important than those gestures. Even if you knew you would lose, you would be ridiculed, even killed, those gestures lived. Mortal bodies perished, but ideals, virtues lived to another day, continued to give hope to the mankind.

“I gave you a horse”, the little demon whispered. That was so out of context that Steve opened his eyes, blinking. He was still sitting on Zemo’s bed, but they were not in the lab anymore. They were outside. No ice in sight though. It was a god honest meadow. The sun made his eyes water and there were poppies.

“What the hell!” Steve shouted. He pushed himself back but nothing much happened. It was not the narrow hospital bed of the lab; this one was much bigger, it was made of wood and had posts. Actually, it looked much like the bed Steve had slept in Germany, in the castle Zemo. Maybe some capricious pagan god had heard his inner torment and took pity on him and he had gotten new superpowers after all. But he didn’t remember how they broke out of the lab. And Zemo in his arms was still talking.

“I gave you my family’s signet ring”, Zemo continued. “I gave you a horse. The best one of my stable, my perfect hunting stallion, and I gave it to the man how rides like a toddler in a carousel.”

They were still sitting Zemo’s back against Steve’s chest. Zemo moved until he was able to turn around and look at Steve. It was… it really was Helmut Zemo, and he wasn’t at the same time. Steve wondered if he himself had changed too.

But never mind that now. They had more pressing worries. Like what had happened. What the hell did Zemo do to them?”

“Your guess is as good as mine”, Zemo said and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know about you, but for me this scene seems oddly familiar. A bed in a strange setting? Like in Little Nemo? Not that fish, but like we… do you remember that comic strip about a boy who had every night bizarre adventures but in the last panel he always woke up in his own bedroom?”

Steve knew what Zemo meant. His ma had also liked Nemo, so much that she had cut the comic strips off the newspapers and saved them, giving them to Steve when he grew up. Steve had been dazzled by the glorious and sometimes intimidating art of Winsor McCay. But how did Zemo knew about that? That comic strip was printed in New York Herald.

“Oh, Steve”, Zemo sighed. “Wasn’t that you who reproached me about those art works the Germans saved from the museums around the Europe? That should tell you I am a descendant of magpies. If it looks nice, it’s mine. The art looks nice, and I have this huge castle and lots and lots of empty walls… But that is not important now. I think I know what is going on. This feels like a place I sometimes visit when I want to be in peace with my own thoughts. I mean, a bed in the middle of the meadow. And we just woke up, or did we? Hopefully, no giant turkey will make an appearance.”

A giant turkey… Steve remembered that one. He almost laughed aloud, before he recalled what he had read from the SHIELD files. There had been studies about psychics and uncanny things they could do. What was it called… an astral plane. Were they in one of those?

“You are doing this for both of us”, Steve realized. “Why? And how… how do we get out of here?”

“I have no idea, for both of your questions. And don’t give me those disappointed eyebrows. I didn’t invite you. There is no reason for you to be here. I was just sleeping.”

No reason… Steve pushed Zemo’s hand away and stood up. “Fury was going to kill you.”

“So?”

“What do you mean so?” Steve was suddenly angry. “You are a helpless POW. He was going to execute you without a trial. Our country has signed international agreements how to treat prisoners of war. How could we pretend that our way is better if we act like some goddammit murdering Nazi scums?”

He wanted to kick that stupid bed. Did it, also. That damned smirk on Zemo’s lips didn’t help Steve’s peace of mind.

“You are so cute”, Zemo said. “A bit naive, but cute. Has anybody noticed that the only way to make you blush is make you angry?”

“Maybe I am naive”, Steve admitted. “And you and Fury, you are men of the world. Big, cynical players... Guess what, I’m sick of your games.”

He didn’t want to kick Zemo whose body was dying in the SHIELD lab, or the poppies, which were quite lovely. So he kicked the bed again, but felt no satisfaction as the feeble construction started to break. A tree, a tree, a kingdom for a tree, its trunk sturdy enough for a proper hits.

“Rogers, I wasn’t… Please, don’t break your toes. Maybe you didn’t notice, but those are not your combat boots. There is no reason to be mad at Fury. It was a sensible move. I infect others. You saw how dangerous that can be. I gave him my written consent.”

That made Steve stop and stare at Zemo in amazement.

“You gave him your permission? To kill you?”

“Yes”, Zemo nodded.

“But… Why on earth did you do that? Are you that afraid of imprisonment? A trial?”

Now was Zemo’s turn to look angry. He took a few prompt steps towards Steve until he could growl at his face: “Of course I can’t have any other motives than being a coward. Nobody else can play martyr better than great Steve Rogers.”

Steve stood his ground, but damn how those words stung. “I never expected you to be a proper gentleman. That kind who doesn’t kiss and tell. But never mind that. Much better men than you have tried to piss on me and I have told them it is raining.”

“I wasn’t insinuating...”

Like hell Zemo wasn’t. Steve had told him his whole sordid history while they were under the influence… whatever this was. Confessed his past sins like some withering heroine in the Gothic novels his ma had liked so much. He squinted his eyes. “Like I said: _I don’t care._ You say you have no idea what is going on. How about that mess in Germany? Tony and Natasha and all those other people? What… your psionic powers just suddenly appeared and decided to ask Captain America on a date? Pull the other one, Zemo. You said I have killed you. What are you, you are not afraid to die because you are some kind of immortal? Is that it? Is this a stupid revenge game you play in your free time? You have an SS blood group tattoo. You’re standing here in a uniform of Waffen-SS. That war ended over seventy years ago.”

“You don’t look so modern yourself.”

Steve knew that. He was wearing a simple linen shirt and trousers with suspenders. His shoes looked awfully much like those brown things which he had kept until they literally fell apart around his feet.

“Do I look as young as you?” Steve asked, looking at Zemo. As said, he was in a uniform. He had no field cap or helmet and his face was smudged with dirt.

“I don’t know how I look. You are something between fifteen and twenty, I think.”

“The same. You, I mean.”

Zemo bent his neck and pulled his collar until he could see his patches. “Two double silver stripes on a bare patch. I seem to be a Rottenführer. That is the same as a lance corporal in the British army.”

“Corporal… Who old were you then?”

Zemo took a step backward and took something from his breast pocket. A pack of cigarettes. He offered it to Steve who took one and started searching his own pockets for matches. Of course he didn’t have any. Thank god Zemo got those too.

“You are the one who said I shouldn’t emulate SS-men”, Zemo said after he had lighted Steve’s cigarette. “Why did you change your mind and now assume I have carried this uniform for real?”

“Come on. Shouldn’t you be screaming with your Nazi accent something like _the war will never end until all of you_ _U_ _ndermensch_ _en_ _are dead_ _under our marching boots_ _.”_

Bucky had always said Steve couldn’t tell a joke, but Zemo’s spontaneous giggle fit would have been hard to pretend. Maybe he was only being hysterical about their situation.

“That sounded exactly like Red Skull”, Zemo sniggered, after he had gotten his breathing under control again. “You are funny, Rogers. People never tell you Captain America is funny.”

“They certainly don’t”, Steve had to admit. “Who are you really? Are you Heinrich Zemo? When we were all cocklodidoo you told me I killed you. Did that make some hocus pocus mental tie between us appear? I know that Hydra likes to flirt with dark arts. Never believed that it works for real before I saw that magician opening portals in the middle of the street. Strange…”

“Indeed.”

“No, his real name was Stephen Strange”, Steve explained, taking a calming drag from his cig. Oh god, how he had missed those. For whatever reason, SHIELD had a very strict policy against smoking. “That Strange fellow, he helped the Avengers in one of our missions. With his portal thingies.”

“Yes, that Strange”, Zemo nodded. “Hydra also has some knowledge, but we like to mix technology and magic. That’s how they have resurrected me a few times. My godfather had never gotten that one working with somebody else. A story of his life, actually. First the super soldier serum failure, and then this… Drives him half mad from frustration, that one.”

It was like Zemo was narrating about his trip to the mall. Steve tried very hard not to think about the meaning of those words. This all… this was starting to be too much, this was not what he signed for when he promised his body to Erskine’s experiments. Or was it? Was this the rest of his life? His death? And that was the most horrible thought of it all: was there even death anymore?

“But if you’re not Heinrich Zemo”, Steve managed through his suddenly numb lips. “Who the hell are you?”

“I told you”, Zemo insisted. “I’m Helmut Zemo. If we try to get to the village we must go through the castle. You’ll see then.”

Steve looked around. He hadn’t failed to see any paths or roads. There was nothing put poppies as far as the eye could see. “How could we do that? Do you even know which direction we should go?”

“Not exactly, but I don’t want to stay here. Makes me nervous.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know”, Zemo said, throwing the butt on the ground. He rub it with the sole of his boot, his gaze on his work, thinking. “What if it starts raining? Where do we get food?”

“Do we need food while we are stuck in this place?”

“I would think so”, Zemo said and pinched Steve’s arm. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe because you saw it coming”, Zemo mused. “Try doing something spontaneous when I’m not looking.”

“Alright”, Steve nodded, snuffing out his own cig. “Later then. I bet Fury is already thinking something… Or maybe he will give us both a poison shot. You didn’t see it, but we didn’t part as the best friends. If our bodies die in there, I don’t think we have to worry about food or getting wet. Maybe we just disappear.”

He squatted down to pick up a poppy. It didn’t have any scent. He didn’t know should it have.

“You’re awful calm about this”, Zemo hesitated. “Are you a panic attack waiting to happen?”

Little did Zemo knew. There was one thing in which Bucky had never been able to beat him and that was Steve’s superior poker face. It had been handy as he acted as Captain America. But now… that was not it. He had felt a short burst of fear, but otherwise this wasn’t anything he considered scary. There seemed not to be anybody to protect or kill. Just him and Zemo. In Zemo’s mind. Maybe better not to think about that too much either.

“After my resurrection from ice it took only a few months and I was battling aliens”, Steve said honestly. “This doesn’t seem as exciting. This is only in my mind, like a dream. I am not acting like an idiot ass in a real world again, am I?”

“We are both probably very unconscious. This is truly my mindplace.”

“As I said”, Steve snorted. “Nothing much to be scared about this. You like flowers then?”

That took Zemo by surprise. “Why is that?”

Steve made a gesture over their surroundings. “From all the things you could imagine you brought us to the flower field.”

“It’s not… I think it’s that poem. From the Great War. It’s about soldiers killed in the battle.”

“Oh. I know it. I just didn’t make the connection. So we are walking over one big graveyard?”

_In Flanders fields the poppies blow_

_B_ _etween the crosses, row on row_

“It appears so”, Zemo admitted, looking shamefaced. “It seems I have no control over my subconscious mind.”

That could be a real problem. Steve looked around. No raising hands of the dead soldiers bursting from the ground, ready to pull them down and under the earth. “Tony likes those films in which dead come alive and eat people.”

“Please, Rogers. Don’t you think we’re in a trouble enough as it is.”

“We”, Steve mused. “All right. I just realized. I may look young, but I feel healthy, no asthma. If you can decide the direction, I am probably able to follow you.”

“So what? Race you to the valley?”

What valley? There was nothing but a flat field all around. “How about we walk.”

As it appeared, they didn’t have to do anything. At one point they were standing beside the bed and the next they were on the cliff facing the castle Zemo. No wonder the family had chosen an osprey for their coat of arms. Steve could easily imagine those birds circling and striking from the skies to the water below. The bridge…

At the same moment the thought came into Steve’s mind, they were standing on the bridge. It was a narrow construction, wide enough only for a wagon (or a car) to reach the gates. It had been easier to defend that way. Steve wondered the battles which had taken place on the castle ground. Maybe he should have thought something else, for example a cozy room with an easy chair and soft carpets, and Steve in there a good book in his lap. He really should have, because it took only a second when he saw a familiar form hurrying towards them, and he was not a damn librarian, worrying after his lost volumes.

The newcomer was him. Or not Steve, exactly. It was Captain America as he was seen through Zemo’s mind. Look at him go! God, he was a magnificent bastard, a whole army in himself. Steve remembered, he and the Commandos had taken care of the guards around the castle ground and were now storming the gates.

An explosion shook the stone under his feet. The gate was indeed open, and One-man-army- Steve attacked the German soldiers who were pouring towards him like a human avalanche. This was… this was not historically accurate, to put it mildly. It was like something an enthusiastic boy had heard his dad to tell him, and then that same boy had made a comic book story about it.

As Steve was looking Captain America shot fire balls from his hands.

“What the hell!”

Well, isn’t that practical! And odd at the same time. One-man-army-Steve was literally on fire, a human flame thrower. The sight boggled him enough that he turned to ask about it from Zemo. Instead of answers, Steve learned his famous poker face had its limit. Some people screamed when a huge spider hopped suddenly onto their face. What made Steve howl like a teenage girl was a bit more than that. It was like… No, it wasn’t anything like dead bodies wandering around in Tony’s favorite TV-series. Those were more pathetic than scary. But this one…

It was Zemo, and at the same time it wasn’t, neither this mind place Zemo nor the real one. He was still in his field-gray uniform with SS insignia, but collar patches were now different and he was wearing an officer’s “crusher”, a field cap without the wire stiffener. As Steve was looking his face started to rot. His nose and cheeks turned brown and melted away, while the right eye split and trickled greenish goo. His lips wrinkled and shrunk away and showed sharp and yellow colored teeth. There was now more bone than flesh in his face and what was left of his eyes were replaced with something dark and shiny and completely inhuman.

“What?” Zemo asked.

Steve took a few deep breath through his nose to get himself back in control. Zemo was again himself, or so much himself as they could be around here, and acted like nothing peculiar had happened. Maybe he really hadn’t noticed the same as Steve. A regular Dorian Grey, Steve remembered from the novel he had read from Oscar Wilde. Dorian was a wealthy but wicked man whose every bad deed left a mark in the magical painting, turning his portrait into the picture of a monster. Was the same true with Helmut Zemo?

Too many questions. Now was not the time. And Zemo was not the only one who had turned into something else.

“That was… My mind makes you look like a human torch”, Zemo explained as Steve turned his attention to the odd fight. “Not Johnny Storm from Fantastic Four, but the original one, that android from the Invaders. I liked him better than you when I read those comics books about your glorious battles against Germany and her allies. My father knew they were propaganda to cover the real missions of you and your Commandos, but anyway, he thought they were educational.”

That still didn’t explain the officer’s gear. Steve was just about to ask when two rifle shots echoed from the stone. It was too loud a sound to be natural. The battling figures at the door solidified into the statues. A fireball was frozen in front of a soldier’s face. One-man-army-Steve himself was left hung in the air, captured into the middle of his leap.

“That was your friend, Sergeant Barnes, shooting Baronin Zemo. She was in the balcony, left herself stupidly open.”

Zemo was wearing his scary face again. The rotten skull looked ghastly as it made the same expressions as the real Zemo, but the voice which came from between the monstrous teeth was astonishing flat and plain, wrung out of emotions.

Bucky was a sharpshooter. Steve had ordered him to clear the perimeter. The Zemo creature tilted his head. The dry sound it made could have been a chuckle. “Please, don’t look so devastated. She and her handmaid died with guns in their hands.”

Steve didn’t know what else to say. Suddenly the scene changed again, now they were in the room Steve remembered from his nicer visit just a few weeks ago. The huge fireplace was the same as was the stone stairs leaving to the other floors. The homey atmosphere was nowhere to be found, though. Dead or wounded soldiers were lying on the floor, and the blood had spotted those nice oriental carpets Steve’s feet liked so much.

 _Face me like a man_ , the man in the uniform shouted. Steve paused because that was Baron Heinrich Zemo, the chief weapon engineer of the Third Reich and the reason Steve and the Commandos had taken this suicidal mission deep in the German soil. Baron had a sword in his hand and he attacked in a perfect-looking form, but One-man-army-Steve’s shield had a way longer range than any blade. The shield flew through the air and smashed in Baron’s arm, incapacitating him for a moment while the impact threw him sideways. More than enough time for One-man-army-Steve to toss his fireball (in reality, he had shot Baron in the chest). The second round, meant to Baron’s head, went awry. Captain had hardly time to raise his shield when it was peppered with three fast shots. One of them nicked his thigh and he turned, fired almost without aiming. There was a young soldier, who looked lots of like Helmut Zemo he knew from this mind place. The shot hit him in the stomach and he fell on the floor.

“A great battle between Captain America and his archnemesis”, the scary face Zemo said with his emotionless tone. “That was my favorite part. Now it gets messy.”

One-man-army-Steve surged forward and stroke his shield in Baron Zemo’s face. Then he did it again and again as he had done to the leviathan, as he had done so many times before. He hit fast and hard until he knew that the man under him was definitely dead, his skull split open and blood and brain matter scattered all over the place.

Their target eliminated, the Commandos and One-man-army-Steve retreated as efficiently as they had attacked. That was sensible, because the reinforcements from the prison camp near by were already on their way.

“Here comes the drama”, the scary face Zemo said and pointed to the young soldier lying on the floor, that one who looked like real Helmut Zemo. He was still alive, but barely. Stomach wounds were often lethal, especially in the field conditions. Too much bacteria which would infect the most complex system in a human body.

“Helmut”, someone behind them shouted. “Helmut! Oh, mein Junge!”

Steve watched as a man in a black SS-uniform knelt besides the young soldier. “Oh nein, nein, nein… Arnim! Arnim! Hilfe!”

“Here we go”, the scary face Zemo said. “To the dungeon lab. The very first resurrection.”

Suddenly they were not in the castle anymore. It looked like a market square in a little village, there was a fountain and people. A horse was standing patiently as a man carried boxes from his wagon. It was a grocery store, Steve thought. A meaningless details were always handy when one wanted to evade important questions.

That man in the black SS-uniform. His face had been a blurry ball, like a sketch which the artist had erased away. Why didn’t Zemo want him to see the man, who was obviously his father or some other near relation.

“Who was that?” Steve asked, though he had a sick feeling he knew the answer. “If you were the young soldier I killed, who was the man who took you to Arnim Zola?”

Zemo was himself once again, and for some reason munching a huge pretzel. “Didn’t you recognize him? He was not wearing his mask at home. That was Johann Schmidt before he pumped himself full of my godfather’s inferior super soldier serum, went crazy, and melted his mask permanently on his face.”

So it is like this, Steve wondered. When they say the earth moved under your feet. “You are a son of Red Skull”, he voiced his disbelieve.

“Not in a way you mean. I am a son of Heinrich Zemo. Not that you think it’s much better that way… do you want a bite?”

“What?”

“It’s half chocolate”, Zemo clarified. “It’s very good.”

He shook his head. “No thanks.” Some fantasy pastry was now as far from Steve’s thoughts as it could be. “But… I don’t understand. In the castle... Why was Red Skull...”

“Johann Schmidt was my father’s shieldmate”, Zemo said, as if stating the obvious. “My other dad, as they say nowadays. Of course he thinks me as his son. Happy four-leaf rainbow family some half a century before anybody invented a name for it. My father and his shieldmate and my mother and her handmaid.”

Steve had forgotten the balcony. The blood escaping from his face left his skin cold and clammy. He shouldn’t feel bad, but he did. Of course he did. What had to be done was not always something anybody would have wanted to do.

“Baronin Zemo”, Steve said slowly. “When Bucky… That was your mother.”

Zemo nodded. “It was, but that happened over seventy years ago, and I don’t want to talk about my dead or mad family members while I am eating. That is just bad manners. You better eat too while you can. We have no idea how long we will be here.”

“Alright”, Steve admitted. Zemo signaled to a young woman, who stood at the street corner in front of the butcher’s shop. She came nearer and showed them her basket full of breads and pastries. Steve took an ordinary looking bun and realized he had no money. He looked at Zemo who tilted his head like thinking about something. Then he snapped his fingers and the basket and the woman disappeared.

“Whoa!” Steve shouted. “Please, don’t do that!”

“For Christ’s sake, Rogers. It was not a person. We are in my mind, remember. She was a memory of somebody I have long ago forgotten… like this village.”

Three story buildings were painted with light pastel colors. There were some cars and those gigantic draft horses pulling a cart full of barrels. And the people. Steve wouldn’t have admitted it to his new teammates, but it was somewhat a relief to see people properly dressed, no tattoos or piercing in sight, no too much naked skin. Men with hats and suits, women in skirts. People in their work clothes doing actual work, carrying, weeping, running, building. It was clearly a scene from the world long gone, but at the same time everything was so achingly familiar it made Steve feel lonely and lost, even if the houses were clearly European and he didn’t understood what passer-byes were saying.

Steve took a tentative nibble from his bun. “That was what you wanted me to be… your shieldmate? When you gave me that unicorn?”

Zemo looked like he was counting to ten for some reason. “That was not a… Rogers, I am not sure if I choose to remember this part of our conversation when we wake up. Yes. I wanted. I still do.”

That one was not an actual surprise. All the people wanted a piece of Captain America. Steve Rogers was harder to sell, but fortunately he didn’t have to, not this time. He didn’t even want to. (Or… maybe a little.)

“And you said it is a custom”, Steve hesitated. Zemo understood the reason of his confusion and explained: “Yes, all the male members of the family are supposed to be like that. Gayish. And if they are not... they’ll fake it until they make it. At least until the bond between the shieldmates is solid. Obviously, I didn’t have to. Fake it with you, I mean. It’s old magic, those are always about some kind of sex.”

“What...” Steve was flabbergasted. “But that is insane! If they don’t really lust after men, why do it at all?”

“It’s about power, naturally. Two warriors with a bond are more powerful physically and mentally. Not even power of two but like power of three or four, or a little army, depending on the nature and strength of their connection. One of my ancestors and his shieldmate, they were Landsknechte, German mercenary pikemen. They served in France army under command of King Francis I. It is told they defeated by themselves a whole company of Swiss mercenaries in the Battle of Marignano.”

 _With you I could_ _conquer_ _a world._ Maybe Zemo had not exaggerated too much. There was just two misinterpretations in this plan of his. Steve was not interested in being a Hydra general. Nor was he willing to share his life with a married guy. One time was enough. Steve had took advantage of Carl’s infatuation, got himself a nice room, plenty of food, and all the books he could ever read. He hadn’t said those three little words to Carl, whose real name he had never known. His reticence hadn’t been enough to wash away his guilt about stealing Carl’s affections from its legitimate target. He really didn’t need any more stuff into his already staggering pile of wrongdoings.

“I’m not married”, Zemo protested, as that was the only thing keeping Steve away from him. “I told you, my wife died.”

“You also stated you still need an heir, and the last time I checked we had zero uterus between ourselves.”

“Yes”, Zemo admitted. “But our kids don’t have to be organic. We could use a surrogate and adopt the baby after he is born. Artificial insemination was invented…” Now Zemo looked sheepish. “Actually, it was invented by my godfather”, he confessed and continued then quickly, as if expecting Steve to protest. “Unlike his many other inventions, that one is safe, legal, and nowadays widely used all over to world. You don’t like children then? Don’t you want a family?”

Steve had locked that fantasy away a long time ago. If he had wanted a family, it would have meant he should hide behind his wife’s skirt, playing a respectable man. He should have sex with his wife, obviously, and well, he couldn’t do that, not without imagining she had a nice dick and a strong, chiseled jaw, and that kind of treason would be a new low even for Steve. He may have been born as an abomination, but there was no way he would drag any innocents down with him.

Even if Steve had felt temptation to answer yes to Zemo’s request, the facts remained the same. As a terrorist leader Helmut Zemo was as far from a good husband material as a lion was from an ordinary tabby cat.

“If we make it out of here, I don think you have to worry about bonding with anybody”, Steve said. “I have read your file and the general agreement between the nations against the members of your organization. The next stop for you will be in Hague, where you will answer for your crimes against humanity. International Criminal Court doesn’t use capital punishment, so they will not execute you, but you can make an educated guess about the court’s decision. You’re going to jail for the rest of your life.”

That said, Steve ate the last bites of his bun. Zemo had finished his for a while ago, and was licking chocolate from his fingers, smirking like a satisfied cat.

“Zemo”, Steve warned. “I don’t know what you are plotting, but as I told you...”

Steve was interrupted by a loud noise. This time it was not made by a car alarm but a real thing. A too familiar wail of an air raid siren made hairs on Steve’s arms rise up. Some people in the street stopped and lifted their faces upward as if expecting to see incoming bombers through the clouds. Most of them were already started running, hurrying towards the nearest shelter and hoping it would not be too full to let them into the safety. As Steve looked around, a little boy fell on the cobble stones. A few people run past him, but nobody seemed to care to pick up the crying child. The market square was quickly emptying, the alarm continuing its raising and falling call, as if the sound itself was trying to lure the enemy bombers over their heads. Steve was able to take only a few steps towards the boy when Zemo grabbed his arm.

“No!” Steve shouted. He made a furtive lurch forward, but there wasn’t anything to catch anymore. The village square had disappeared.

“Why did you do that!” Steve shouted and hit Zemo’s shoulder. “We have to go back!”

“Rogers, remember where we are. This is not real. It was not a real child.”

Not real. Well, it had seemed real for him. Steve felt his heart beating too fast. They were in a cellar of some sort. It smelled like potatoes. No real alarms, no real bombs coming, Steve said to himself. He was frustrated how that continuing banshee wail of death made him shook inside like a plateful of his ma’s best jelly. It was easy to turn his irritation towards Zemo.

“Why the hell are you imagining something like this!” Steve shouted as the alarm was finally covered by the loud explosions which shook the dirt floor under their feet. “Do you miss the war this fucking much? Be glad I don’t throw you outside to test how fucking real it is this time!”

“I think it’s Fury”, Zemo shouted too to be heard over the noise. “He has made his move and something in my mind tried to alarm me in the only way it can.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are coming to rescue you. And if the bombing thing is some flimsy symbolism... They are likely ripping my mind apart while trying to reach you.”

“But they...” Steve started. They can’t do that, he had wanted to say, but that was a stupid thought. Fury could and he would, he had already one time tried to kill Zemo, and now Steve would probably die with him.

The walls around them tumbled down. Steve prepared himself. The alarm sounded its brief danger over sign, and then the silence descended like a vacuum. It took a few seconds that Steve’s senses started working again. His nose was filled with smoke before he saw the flames, heard the crackle the fire made while spreading over the ruined village. He turned to ask if Zemo could do his vanishing trick again, but the man had dropped onto his knees and seemed not to notice what was happening. His face was whiter than the best linen of Steve’s ma, and he was shaking in pain. It had started, Steve realized, destroying the constructions of Zemo’s mind by outside force was doing that to him.

“Zemo”, Steve said. “Can you stand up? We have to go.”

“No”, Zemo whimpered. “It’s too late. They are here. They will...”

Steve didn’t have time to ask what Zemo had meant, when he saw familiar figures hurrying towards the burning buildings. Steve knew nothing of it was supposed to real, but when the American soldiers reached the people who were trying to put down the fires, he assumed the soldiers would start helping them. Instead their leader raised his submachine gun and shot the nearest villagers in the bucket line.

Jesus H. Christ! Steve was seeing red. “Cease the fire! Now! Stand the fuck down, sergeant!” his bellow echoed over the crackle of the gun fire. A few fast steps carried him outside and in front of the miserable sight. Bodies of dead or wounded littered the ground, and Steve saw among them a little boy who had fallen on the village square. It was no use he repeated to himself that they were not real human beings. The leader of the soldiers (she wasn’t a guy like Steve had assumed but a neg… African-American woman with a long and purple colored hair) tried to say something, but Steve’s fist was talking faster and louder. He hit the woman’s jaw with a brunt of his whole anger, but for his astonishment nothing happened.

“Captain Rogers! Sir!” the woman shouted as Steve took a step back and prepared to repeat the treat. She had let go of her gun and made reassuring gestures showing her palms. “Please, I know this must look awful to you, but listen. We are in Zemo’s mind. Nothing of this is real. Those people are no more sentient than those houses or the pavement. They are only Zemo’s defense structures against outside attacks. If you try to defeat us, you’re helping him, and if you do that, you will die. We know Hydra’s plan.”

“You do”, Steve asked.

“Yes, we do”, the woman said and glanced at Zemo like something nasty she would have liked to step on hard. “I’m Marigold Jones, the chief psychic of SHIELD PSI division. Captain, Zemo is trying to assimilate you. To make you a Borg puppet.”

“I don’t think Rogers gets it”, Zemo said. “If you want to make a movie quotation, your selection is limited to Disney.” Zemo turned towards Steve and started speaking in an exaggerated illustrious manner. “What Ms. Jones here is saying, my innocent little Snow White, I have asked the hunter to cut your heart out and bring it to me in a little box. A quite good plan. Mine is better. Fuck the mirror and the fairest of them all, I surrender.” Zemo raised his hands and spoke to Jones again. “I’m done. Please, Ms. Jones. Help us both out of here.”

It was unusual to hear Zemo prattle. He was still pale and shaky, and obviously scared, but his original smirk tried to jerk the corner of his mouth. It didn’t have time to bloom. Some kind of knife had popped out from the back of Jones’s right hand, and with one shift and merciless movement she pushed the blade through Zemo’s head.

Zemo screamed. His body started to crack. It was like a clay figure had crumbled away and revealed a lighting bolt inside. Steve covered his eyes but he felt the warmness on his skin, the light was streaming through his fingers. Something touched his forehead. It felt the same as his mother’s lips when he had been very ill and waiting to die. It was as if Zemo’s soul had kissed him for goodbye.

Steve lowered his hand. He stared at the spot Zemo had been standing. There wasn’t anything to be seen. Only echo of Zemo’s shout still lingered around him and Jones and the four other soldiers of her PSI strike team. Steve had to fight against the nasty feeling of being betrayed.

“He said he surrendered”, Steve said quietly. Something fierce was making his throat feeling full. He felt suffocating. “He was helpless against the five of you and you just killed him.”

“Rogers, you are not used to psionic battle”, Jones said, acting as if she had not heard what Steve said. “It was an obvious trap. He tried to stall. His avatars… that means, the monsters he had made to guard this place. They are very powerful and regrouping, we almost didn’t manage to push through them the first time. We have to go.”

A few seconds and Steve got to know why Jones hadn’t try to explain her doings. There was a flash of light and then Jones’s blade went through his head like she had done with Zemo. Her knuckles pushed against his temple as the blade bottomed into his skull. In the horizon he saw a glimpse of a gigantic figure. It was a stone statue of a medieval knight in a full armor, but this one moved. It raised its sword, and then…

And then, nothing. Steve felt nausea, but it passed as quickly as it had come. A brief feeling of displacement, and then he was back in his own body. For a while everything felt clumsy and too heavy, but then his mind adjusted, and he could look around. He was on the bed. In the cell. Again. This time there was somebody else with him.

It was not Zemo, but a guy with a green hair. Maybe today was an odd-hair-color day, and nobody had told him about it.

“Hi”, the man greeted him. “I’m Doctor Leonard Samson. Director Fury thought we should have a chat.”

“I bet he did”, Steve mumbled, rubbing his face. God, he felt like he could sleep for a week. “I assume you are not a doctor in quantum mechanics or something like that, but the other kind. A head kind.”

“That’s right. I’m a psychiatrist.”

“Of course you are”, Steve huffed. That Samson fellow had an audacity to sound amused about Steve’s antics. “What happened to Zemo? Is he...”

“He is alright. Marigold Jones is with him. Now that they know what is going on, they are able to help him.”

That sounded awful nice. Too nice, Steve wouldn’t have given such a treatment to the prisoner who was suspected to carry out some devious Hydra plan as Jones had described before.

“Captain Rogers. Please, don’t do anything hasty”, the doctor asked, seeing his tightening fists and the way the muscles of his shoulders were moving. “Do you know who Hulk is?”

Green hair, Steve mused. Maybe there was a biblical story about a fallen hero and a devious woman in there somewhere. “Samson, is that really your name?”

“Well, that depends”, Doctor Samson said. “When I’m dealing with other supers, use of a code name is required. My real name is Leonard Skivorski.”

“Your hair… because of gamma radiation?”

Samson nodded.

“Quite”, Steve hummed. “Talking is all good and proper, but sometimes it’s better to just smash things, don’t you think.”

Doctor Samson put his notepad back into his briefcase. They both stood up almost the same time.


	9. A Person Who Communicates a Lie May Be Termed a Liar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets keep unraveling as Fury needs Helmut’s help.

Helmut wondered should he be thankful to Ms. Jones. She could have locked his mind into some goddammit awful hellhole, but instead he had gotten a nice attic room in an old house he vaguely recognized his great aunt’s summer place. There were children books on a self he had made with his grandfather. The bed was covered with a blue patchwork quilt which had acted as a sea in his many pirate adventures. After a while he was so bored he actually considered repeating his childhood imaginary journeys. Once precious teddy bear could play the part of an enemy captain, with its one eye missing it now reminded him about Fury.

There was no clock on the wall, and the view from the window didn’t change. It was an endless summer afternoon. There was no way to use the time by sleeping. He had been wide awake during his time in this room, but he didn’t feel tired. No hunger or thirst or full bladder.

He had tried the door and the window, but they didn’t open. He wondered what would happen if Ms. Jones just decided to leave him there. Would he be free if they let his physical body die in a real world, or would his psychic energy keep him alive, here, forever? After centuries of this timeless time, would he go mad?

“Maybe”, Ms. Jones said. She had popped at the door from the thin air. Helmut had no idea which one of his questions she had answered, and he didn’t want to find out. “We have finished your safety walls. Time to try them out. Director Fury wants a word with you.”

Helmut looked through the window again. Instead of garden it was now showing him a grim-looking brick wall. When Helmut inspected it more closely, it didn’t appear to be so sturdy as it had first seemed. There were more than a few bricks missing. Mortar was crumbling here and there and pushing tiny blue flowers.

“It will hold”, Ms. Jones said, and Helmut couldn’t shake the feeling she was trying to convince herself more than him. Then the attic room disappeared and he was sitting on a cot in a standard SHIELD prison cell. The door was open and an agent came in. He gestured Helmut to stand up and then fastened the cuffs around his wrists.

Four other agents joined them when they stepped into the corridor. Helmut didn’t know should he be flattered or snort to such an aggrandizement. His head felt like an overripe tomato, ready to burst by the lightest of touches. It was unlikely he could make any fuss.

Fury let him wait over ten minutes. Helmut didn’t mind that. He had waited God only knows how long in that tiny attic room. Listening the agents breathing behind his chair and looking ordinary adult things in Fury’s office was now like sitting in the best-selling Broadway show.

“What are you smirking at”, Fury asked, after he had dismissed the agents guarding Helmut. “Did she strike you silly? That would be the last thing… the scramblers are on, we can speak freely. Marigold Jones assured me that your little problem with personal boundaries has been taken cared of. Is it? How much do you remember?”

“Ms. Jones packs a punch”, Helmut admitted carefully. The cuffs were removed, but Fury could call the agents back and restrain him any time he pleased.

“Yes she does.” Fury let out a joyless chuckle. “What I understood from her report, she had to build some kind of mental barrier in your mind. It took her and her team almost a week, you will hear the details later. You are not able to use those weird powers of yours, you should be safe. We too.”

Ms. Jones was a mutant with PSI powers. If she had had difficulties to contain Helmut, did it mean his powers were somewhat stronger than hers? She was a chief psychic of SHIELD and Helmut was … what, a mutant baby, and wasn’t these powers supposed to reveal themselves in puberty? They were some seventy years late then. The whole idea of him being a mutant was absurd anyway. As a child he had been tested for an X-gene every year by his godfather Arnim Zola. That horrible and boring day had always been a few weeks before his father’s birthday. As an adult he had realized his father had hoped his powers to manifest not only for Helmut’s benefit but as a gift for himself.

As a military family they had hoped Helmut to become supernaturally strong or fast or invulnerable. Maybe breathing fire or invisibility would have been also appreciated, but this was something else. To infect other people’s minds, more ethically ambiguous mutant power was hard to find. Not very honorable if one was thinking their family tradition, but within his father’s new regime, it would have been a jackpot. He could imagine his old man getting an epilepsy attack from pure rapture when Uncle Arnim would have announced the happy news.

 _L_ _ead us not into temptation..._

Yeah, right. Helmut wondered if God was making popcorn and laughing at his expense right now.

“You are not giving me a silent treatment, are you?” Fury was saying. He looked like he had wanted to roll his eye. “Not asking after Rogers? No? Well, he is alright. I put him to talk with our psychiatrist. He doesn’t like it, but that was long overdue. Though it seems that they are mostly smashing punching bags together.”

Helmut felt a sharp stab of jealousy. He concealed his feelings fast, but something of it probably seeped into his expression because it made Fury silently admonish him. Helmut knew Rogers was a guy with a full dance card, and he had made his feelings towards goddammit Nazi bastards perfectly clear. Fury’s obvious distaste was still like a slap on his face. Maybe Helmut needed it to wake up from his weird stupor. Nobody wanted to appear as needy and weak in front of Captain America, but the tingle going around his body every time Steve was mentioned made Helmut scared. His chest was aching and it felt like he wasn’t breathing right. It all was too much like how papa Johann had described one would feel for his shieldmate. But there had been no mage to help them to seal the bond. Just lot of sex, but it shouldn’t do anything by itself, should it? And his head… did that woman change his brains with somebody’s while making that wall? This one seemed to be full of cold vegetable soup. (He hated onions.)

“Zemo! For fuck’s sake! What ever it is, snap out of it. We have more important things to worry about. Your fail-safe protocol launched itself four hour ago.”

First he didn’t believe he had heard right. Then he almost fell on the floor when the burst of anger made him stood up too fast. “What the hell do you mean? If that is a joke it is not funny! I gave you the codes...”

“They didn’t work. Or you gave me wrong ones, you were out of it most of the time.” Fury raised his hand like anticipating his retort and Zemo fell silent. Sometimes was more useful to just listen. “This is what happened”, Fury continued. “Your fail-safe protocol activated and send gazillion MB top secret information from Hydra mainframe to the public net. The names, photos and other personal information of every double agent and Hydra infiltrator known by you and me are a viral hit list of this week. Our government body is paralyzed when the different fractions of administration are trying to get each others fired and arrested. The work which we were doing secretly and discreetly have to be done now as soon as possible. This is a massive strike against people’s faith towards government’s ability to take care of common good. Our whole organization is now tied up to arrest and interrogate persons on the list with no hard evidence or backup whatsoever, because you couldn’t do this in any sensible way.”

Like sending his information to Fury in the first place. That would have been lot to ask in a trust department and they both were notoriously bad in those kind of gestures.

“I don’t think that gazillion is a word. How about my two hour margin? Why didn’t you...”

“We couldn’t wake you up any sooner”, Fury interrupted. “Agent Jones was sure you would go psychic equivalent of boom without the wall in place. And yes, we noticed. Your “margin” moved lots of Hydra money to the very unusual places.” Fury looked at his tablet. “For example what the hell is Afro-American Audacious Alliance?”

Helmut had to think about that a minute. There were hundreds of charities which had now gotten an anonymous donation from a generous benefactor.

“If my memory serves me right… Four A is a shelter for streets kids, kept by a core group of six lesbian woman.” Fury was now giving him so much eye that if Helmut had been any less of a man he would have started to squirm. “I vetted all the charities myself. They should be as they say them to be.”

“I don’t doubt that”, Fury mumbled. “We were wondering which one of these is your personal piggy bank?”

Helmut felt his mouth fell open. What did he need money for in a coffin? Because this was it. The end of the road.

“Fury, don’t be an idiot. It was called fail-safe protocol for reason. If I died for real or disappeared without a trace, all the information I had siphoned from the system, all the risks I had been taking, would have been lost for ever. But by sending them to some third party… All the actions leave a trail and in this case it’s a very wide and good-paved road. When the panic dies and they start to investigate, that trail leads them straight to me. You have to know this, or have you been replaced by some Skrull impostor while nobody was looking?”

“I am wondering about your actual escape plan. Now with your new and quite unstable abilities everything will be harder, I guess.”

“You are not listening… This all shouldn’t be happening unless I am a dead man. That was the plan. There is no plan B or C or D. No appendixes”, Helmut tried to explain, but Fury still looked incredulous. “Leave it”, Helmut mumbled. “You are not going to believe me anyway. Tell me, what was the big rush? You were talking like you want me to do something about this.” But what could he do?

“What I want, agent...”

Helmut felt how his upper lip was withdrawing, when a caveman in him was preparing to show some teeth. “Don’t you ever call me that, Fury”, he snapped. “I’m not one of your little minions.”

“Zemo, no more games now. What I need is a time machine, but with a lack of it, more time is sufficient. To gain that, it would help if you add more confusion.”

“I see”, Helmut said. That at least was a plain, naked truth, maybe the first one in this conversation.

“How is you head? Are you able to keep up?”

Helmut nodded. More confusion. Got it. “I bet you have no riding breeches, so I would need one of those anonymous black uniforms and combat boots. A water bottle. My throat is like sand paper. How do I look?”

Fury turned the camera on and gave his tablet to Helmut. He looked like a dead panda.

“You will need some make up.”

It was Romanoff. Helmut had no idea how long she had been in the room, and by the way Fury almost jumped out of his skin, he had either. (God, they should put a bell on that woman! But maybe it would have been even scarier to hear her coming.) “I checked the stock, but all the light skin make up was gone. Agent Barton’s last week lunch hour carnival, I presume. Everyone wanted to be the Joker… But I got these from agent Hernandez.”

“Agent Hernandez”, Fury mused. “Isn’t she albino?”

“These will do”, Romanoff said while her fingertips tilted Helmut’s head to the better angle. “We just don’t use too much foundation… What is Hydra’s policy for make-up?”

Helmut played like that had been a serious question, because with Romanoff you never knew.

“As a traditionalist and militant organization I don’t think Hydra has any regulations about dolling up which would apply to men. It is assumed we don’t need any. Female members are not forbidden to use make-up or make hairdos though officially they are preferred in their natural state.”

Romanoff nodded. “Too little is then better than too much. Let’s hope your condition only adds to your devastated looks. It’s fit as Hydra is now going through its worst crisis since their loss in the World War II.”

“Well said”, Helmut huffed. “Can I quote you on that one?”

Romanoff gave him a tight little smile and moved away that Helmut could change his clothes.

“Are you ready?” Fury asked after Helmut had given him his call list. Fury and Romanoff backed off from view, while Helmut took his best parade rest in front of Fury’s main computer screen.

The computer was connecting a call. Major Andrea von Strucker, the Financial Director of Hydra West, took her time to answer.

“Cousin Helmut”, the woman said. She looked nervous. No, she looked like she had been vomiting for an hour straight, and no wonder, she was now a purse holder with empty accounts.

“Have you been stationed in Belgium too long, Major von Strucker?” Helmut asked, letting his calm voice get an icy frosting. “Is that some new way to address your superior officer? Or did you honestly believe this to be a social call?”

Helmut saw how a new patch of sweat started exuding from his cousin’s hair line. “C-commander Zemo”, she stammered. “I beg your pardon. What can I...”

“You useless cunt”, Helmut interrupted her, never raising his voice, but taking a step towards the camera. Andrea swayed back until she realized Helmut couldn’t reach her through the screen. “You mindless idiotic inbreed bitch, what have you done?”

“Commander Zemo, our team has deducted it was a group of Asian based hackers”, Andrea hurried to say, finding her bearings. “One of my team recognized their style. The group used an unstable code in our main matrix to push through. We are tracking them right as we speak.”

“This attack… Any connection to General Zhao Li Wei?”

General Zhao was the High Commander of Hydra East. Helmut had made sure with many false rumors and imprudent deeds that the relation between the organizations was strained at its best.

“Nothing this far”, Andrea said, pursuing her lips like admonishing herself not to notice to think this herself. “We start investigating right away, Commander.”

“You do that. Do we have figures yet? How much did we lose?”

“We are still investigating.”

“I see.” Helmut’s pinched look told Andrea he saw much more the woman ever wanted him to see. “Those new safety protocols which I recommended to your department in the last meeting, and which your _expert_ declined, talking about the expenses. They would have been handy now, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes, Commander.” Her voice was almost a whisper. Andrea had guessed which way Helmut’s thought were going and she was desperately wishing he wouldn’t quite reach his goal.

“It’s fascinating how something like this happens right after I warned you about that weakness in your system. We often search complicated explanations when a simple one sits in our lap. Let’s see, like Lieutenant Garrison, I suppose. The _expert_ you let to evaluate my recommendations. He is also your lover, isn’t he?”

“Commander, I would never let my feelings...”

“Shut up, Andrea”, Helmut said, and somehow, using her given name made an effect as if he had hit her in the stomach. “Just shut up, you silly girl”, Helmut said and now he let some desperation seep into his voice. “Didn’t you know your lover’s aunt has a very lucrative and a very legal trade agreement with the government of China? Could you guess how she got that? Nothing happens there without General Zhao knowing. I bet that old fat bastard is laughing into his beard right now. And this is also my fault.”

Helmut let his eyes fill with grief. “I voted for you when we decided about your current position. I should have know that you are too young and inexperienced to such a precarious task. But I had so high hopes for you. I am ready to take any punishment the High Commander sees fit to give me, but the question is, what will become of you, my cousin? You and your brother have been close to my heart all these years, and I hate to see you come to harm even if it is justified.”

Andrea looked like she was going to faint. Romanoff stared at him with her most neutral expression, probably guessing what would happen next.

“Commander… cousin Helmut. Is there anything...” Andrea’s voice faded, like gathering strength to her plead. “Please, I know I am not worthy, and I happily submit to any punishment you and the council see fit to gave me, but can I have one last boon? Please, cousin Helmut, guarantee me the honor to deal with the traitor myself.”

Helmut was silent while he weighed Andrea’s proposition.

“The man is your lover”, he finally stated with quiet distaste. “Andrea… Don’t you want your brother to do that for you? I don’t dare to hope that your heart doesn’t fail you again. If that happens, there is nothing I can say to help you. I can guarantee the High Commander will not be lenient against your shortcomings.”

He saw her swallowing. Helmut wondered what the deal between the twins had been this time. They were both known to be jealous like devils towards any outsides in their relationship. Had they been sharing the good Lieutenant’s charms? “No, Commander”, Andrea was saying. “If you give me your permission I will do it myself. I will not fail.”

“Very well”, Helmut sigh was the sound of the weight of the world lowering onto his shoulders. “You have my permission to deal with the traitor by any means necessary, Major von Strucker”, he said and added then with softer tone: “Good luck, Andrea. Heil Hydra! Zemo out.”

“Heil Hydra! Thank you, Commander. Von Strucker out.”

Fury ended the call. He didn’t seem to mind that Helmut had doomed an innocent man to be tortured and killed. (An innocent being a relative term when they were talking about Hydra Lieutenant Adam Garrison, who carried an appealing nickname of the Butcher of Asmara.)

“I think that went well”, Fury nodded as Helmut took a sip from his water bottle. “What do you say, Agent Romanoff?”

“She was wearing too much lipstick”, Romanoff said, referring to Andrea’s outfit. She raised her brow to Helmut who shrugged his shoulders.

“Privilege of the rank”, Helmut said. “Or the power corrupts. How one likes to see it. Do we take the next one?”

Fury’s finger was hesitating on the button. “Next”, Zemo repeated, his patience wearing thin. What he had just done, it might gain accepting nods from the hard balls like Fury or agent Romanoff, but he couldn’t be not wondering what Steve would have said about this scene. Something illustrative, probably.

He opened his collar while waiting the call to connect. Commander Aleksandr Vankin was Helmut’s equivalent of Hydra North. He and Helmut had _an understanding_ , whatever that meant. Helmut let his fingers linger on his buttons, letting his jacket open a little more. “Hello Sasha”, he purred as the Russian’s face filled the screen. Sasha jerked like he had expected something, or somebody, else. He composed himself in seconds, but Helmut knew him so well he could discern a real relief filling Sasha’s eyes before it was covered with his usual jovial indifference.

“Helmut”, Sasha said. “Nice to see you the head still on your shoulders.”

Helmut laughed even if it had not been a joke but a fact of their lives. “And why would you think I have anything to do with my dear cousin’s screw up?”

“Your cousin.” The corner’s of Sasha’s mouth turned briefly upward, before the line of his lips evened out. Sasha had always had the same tells when he tried to hide his surprise. “I had a feeling they would start the blame game from the top and I was wondering... She got nothing to do with the actual info leak, I hope.”

“No, praise Odin”, Helmut said and allowed to himself a brittle, self-mocking laugh. “You should never give a woman a purse, if you want to see your money again. If it is not too many new handbags then she will splurge all of it to her lover.”

“That Garrison fellow”, Sasha nodded. “Never trusted that guy after the mess he and his team made in Eritrea. I would say, if a guy needs amusements, make love not war. And if you make war, be ready to clean after yourself. He really pissed off our allies over the border. He is executed already, I hope.”

“If my cousin is through with him. I suspect that would take time, you know. Hell hath no fury...”

 _...like a woman scorned._ Sasha smirked and made an exaggerated shudder.

“Sasha, this mess makes me a nervous wreck”, Helmut confessed. He had backed up and sit on Fury’s desk, his legs apart. He let his head fall backward so that the white column of his neck was exposed. The pose made him look weak and vulnerable, easy to persuade and then conquer. A language every Hydra officer understood and spoke fluently. When Helmut raised his eyes on the screen, he saw Sasha still staring at the place his exposed jugular had been.

“Sometimes I wonder”, he sighed, “could I just pack my suitcase and leave this chaos.”

“Why don’t you”, Sasha said with a voice that had turned hoarse. “You know we would have you here in a heartbeat. After that damn union, Europe has been like an open sewer. I know that constant bickering of our allies offends your German sense of discipline. Everything is so much simple here.”

“I know”, Helmut said, licking his lips. “Please, don’t temp me. You know I can’t break my daddy’s heart.”

Sasha blinked and seemed as if he was waking up from a hypnosis. “No, no of course. That was just… If you need a break...”

“I keep you in my thoughts. Thanks that you listened to my whining again, Sasha. It really eases my mind. Heil Hydra! Zemo out.”

“Any time, Helmut. You just need to ask. Heil Hydra! Vankin out.”

Helmut waited that Fury had severed the connection before he explained: “Commander Vankin is the worst gossiper at this side of the northern hemisphere. By tomorrow everyone and their dead grannies will know about Andrea and the money the Hydra lost because of her lover’s treachery.”

He concentrated for a moment on buttoning and noticed only after his jacket was closed again that stunned and somewhat nauseated expression on Fury’s face hadn’t changed.

“What?” Helmut had to ask, because he honestly didn’t know what was wrong this time. “Don’t mind Sasha. He is like a dog. Easy to direct and discipline.”

“Horndog, you mean”, Fury huffed. “Daddy?”

Oh _that_. “Sasha never bought the myth of my being a Hydra equivalent of Percival the Pure. So I let him think I was making a drunken confession to him. After that… Summa summarum: Helmut Zemo is an air-head who was promoted not because of his military talent but being well-disciplined in the sack. He thinks I have the High Commander’s ear because I am Red Skull's toy boy.”

“Aren’t you?”

Romanoff’s quiet question made him almost slip from the desk and fall on the floor. What did they think he was, more disturbed version of von Strucker’s incest coupling?

Helmut had to remind himself only Steve knew that Helmut considered High Commander Johann Schmidt as his father. Steve hadn’t shared the information which stoke him as odd. Or maybe Steve had told Fury, and Romanoff wanted him to believe Steve hadn’t.

Never mind that now.

“If the High Commander and I were like _that_ I would have defected a long time ago.”

That would have demanded a longer explanations, but the conclusion was that his change of loyalties would have led to an open conflict between the two or more branches of their organization. The end result would have made the Trojan War look like siblings skirmishing at the breakfast table.

“At least you don’t have self-esteem problems, Helena.”

Helmut shook his head to Fury. Maybe he wanted to deny his assumptions. Or add to them. “Next”, he asked.

It continued like that the next hour and half. His calls puzzled, agitated, made receivers feel paranoid. He was constantly different, showed only a fraction of himself while making contact and even that was usually a blatant lie. It was an Oscar worthy serial of acts, but for Helmut it wasn’t more than his usual day job. Finally there was only one number left. The most important and at the same time the most difficult call to make. Now his lies should be wrapped in so thick layer of truth that the receiver wouldn’t guess his gift just by seeing or touching the present.

“Are you ready?” Fury asked with hushed tones. Even Romanoff shuffled briefly before making again one of her statue impersonations.

Helmut nodded. He stiffened his knees, ready to extend his both arms into Roman salute.

“Commander Zemo present as requested, High Commander. Heil Hydra!”

“Hail Hydra, Commander Zemo”, his father’s gruff voice answered. The video took a little more time to play, there were too many false tracks obscuring the real connection that Fury had no hope to trace the call back to Red Skull.

Helmut didn’t have to fake a sudden slump in his throat. He hadn’t meet his father for months. Maybe it was almost a year now. Even their last video call… it had been an official district meeting, two months ago. The screen filled with a scene from a study which could have been in any anonymous place hosting a well-doing and well-read gentleman. Usual bookshelves with old looking volumes on the background, a big antique desk and in front of it standing Johann Schmidt himself. His father looked the same as always: skull-like, vermilion, and downright horrible. But to Helmut, who had considered the man as his family member almost for nine decades, his appearances were horrid in a way the Beast was horrid to the Beauty; if the thing meant anything at all, the word he was searching was home.

“At ease, my son”, the ghastly apparition said after the silence had continued for a little too long.

Helmut let himself move to the parade rest. “As you wish, High Commander.”

“Helmut”, the man sighed.

“My apologies, Papa. But I feel it is not sufficient to stand in front you in this situation, doing nothing or offering no solutions.”

There was a muted thump when the tablet slipped from Fury fingers and fell on the floor. Maybe Helmut should have told more when Fury and Romanoff speculated about his and Red Skull’s relationship, but he hadn’t guessed his father would be anything but official during the call. Now he didn’t know what to expect from the rest of their conversation. Even the eerie calm of the man was strange, Helmut had assumed he should be well in his way into incoherent rant by now.

“Helmut, it is good you contacted me. I have tried to reach you. As you know somebody has struck into our very heart.”

“They stole our files and money.”

“Yes. Son, tell me…what is going on? What is wrong?”

Helmut swallowed. It was alright, he told himself. He was supposed to be ashamed and full of sorrow because they have a traitor in their mist. Somebody they knew and trust had turned his or her back to their ideals. And what for? For money? That one was obvious, because he or she had stolen millions. But surely his father had already heard of his poor cousin Andrea and Lieutenant Garrison? Or wasn’t he buying the story?

“Nothing is wrong, Papa. I was thrown out of balance because of Andrea.”

“Andrea”, his father repeated. “Yes, I heard… that idiotic girl. To believe the tales… Where are you?”

A warning, Helmut’s instincts had started to scream. _That idiotic girl to believe the tales._ To believe Helmut, he had meant. He knows the truth, Helmut realized. But he shouldn’t. Not this soon.

“It was you”, his father said, confirming Helmut’s thoughts. His voice was not angry, but oddly curious. A bit sad, maybe. “We tracked your codes. Nobody else knows yet. Explain.”

Helmut straightened his back without realizing he had moved. That was not his father anymore, but High Commander Schmidt, his superior officer and the Leader of the Hydra Great Council. Abusing Zola’s super soldier serum had made Red Skull god-honest mad but he was not stupid. One of his most prominent skills as a leader was his almost uncanny ability to find and hire (or blackmail or threaten) people to do his bidding. If Helmut had known he had acquired a new IT expert (the last one had been too slow to duck and had an accident with Papa’s antique paperweight), he would have taken care of things in the first opportunity.

Sloppy work, Helmut! But for his defense, his signature code shouldn’t be an issue, Helmut should be dead and not worrying a thing right now.

“Where are you?” His father was raising his voice, starting to sound agitated. Those famous mood-swings usually left him a frantic, drooling fool, only a shadow of the man Helmut had known in his childhood.

Oh well. As always in an unexpected situation, Helmut improvised. “I am... not allowed to say.”

“What do you mean? I heard a noise. Is there somebody with you?”

“Papa”, Helmut said, making his voice crack. “They got me. They did something... my head. I can’t…”

All he had said was an actual truth, but at the same time a lie wide and deep as an ocean. He didn’t need to pretend to be dolorous, the situation did it for him generously.

Romanoff had read his inconspicuous finger signs right. Now it was up to Fury to play his part.

“Zemo, that’s enough”, Fury snapped. A few fast steps and he was in the front of camera, his hand taking a strong hold of Helmut’s short cut-hair. “Down”, he ordered. “Don’t talk.”

Helmut let himself fall on his knees. For better effect, he circled Fury’s leg with his arms until they looked like a cover of an old-fashioned pulp magazine. Fury’s thigh muscles jerked with surprise, and Helmut tightened his grip, for a second needing the actual support. He was not brave enough to lift his head, to see the expression his father had to be sporting while looking at his son’s abjection.

“Fury”, he heard his father saying.

“Mr. Schmidt.” Fury’s voice was carefully neutral, even if his words couldn’t be described to be nothing else than sarcastic. “How lovely you decided to join us this evening.”

“You will die for this, Fury.”

No half an hour pompous rant. No threats, just stating his action plan as a fact and then a closed connection.

Helmut stood up slowly, not sure his feet could hold his weight. Fury was staring at him again as if he had stated himself to be the last green man of Mars.

“Yes, he called me son. I called him papa. Get over it, Fury. It’s not some weird sex kink, and he is not my biological father either”, Helmut said, explaining nothing more.

“Right”, Fury hesitated. “Do you think he bought our act?”

“He would like to. He hopes to, when the alternative is something unthinkable. But probably not. I don’t think he believed us.”

“Oh well, that was a good try”, Fury mused. “If we have any luck, he tries to save his own dignity and doesn’t tell his Nazi pals anything about your part. That would buy us more time.”

Something wet and itchy was running over his cheek. Helmut turned his back on the other two, afraid of that he would start crying in front of Fury, but when he rubbed discreetly his skin, his fingertips didn’t come out as wet. Or yeah, they were moist, but they were also red with his own blood.

“Fury! You promised this is under control!” During the calls pressure had built quietly inside his ears, his eyes, and his nose, and he had thought it was his emotions taking a toll. Maybe it had played a part. Now it was too late to think about reasons when everything turned ruby red. He gasped a fast lungful of air, but his mouth was already full of something. A taste of copper had time to register in his mind, then the blood surged out of his mouth and spread on his clothes and on the floor. Helmut heard Fury’s frantic shouts when he ordered somebody called Sanders to quarantine his quarters immediately.

Helmut had dropped on the floor, but this time he was not alone, there was somebody there with him already. Romanoff? He tried to wipe blood from his eyes, but his hand didn’t react. Romanoff didn’t move either, only Fury was still operational and talking.

“Director, Doctor Samson is calling”, Sanders’s disembodied voice was stating somewhere through Fury’s speakers. “He says Rogers lost his consciousness in the middle of their conversation, and he can’t wake him up.”

“Why him, when I am still… Jesus!” It was Fury again. “Agent Sanders, locate Stark immediately! Use his stress signal. Those three were originally affected by Zemo’s powers, and if the proximity is not an issue any more, it’s only logical this will have an effect on Stark. If he is still conscious, order him to end what ever he is doing and lie down on something soft.”

“Sir, Stark is not answering.”

“Lets hope he was not flying when Zemo’s onslaught hit him. Find him. Make a priority alert. Then get me Marigold Jones.”

Helmut heard no more. He too had lost his bearings in this world and moved to the other level of existence, the familiar and scary one. He screamed his protest, but as expected, nobody in the room heard any sounds from his lips.


	10. The Wraith, the Roe, and the Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Fury calls in an expert to deal with the situation, Steve, Tony, and Natasha get a nightmare tour in the most unseemly place in Helmut’s mind.

_This is not a_ _punishment_ , a note from Fury had stated. _N_ _o_ _r it’s a_ _revenge._ (For hitting his superior officer, Steve knew. And threatening him with a gun.)

“No, this is not about that”, Doctor Samson had repeated after Steve put down the paper. “Director Fury thought you need somebody to talk to. He had a message for me also: _I have s_ _cr_ _ewed up everything with Rogers from the beginning. Try to make it right or at least less bad_.”

 _Let’s get to point then_ , Steve thought a bitter taste in his mouth. “Mr. Rogers”, Samson was saying, guessing the direction of his thoughts. “Don’t be mad at Fury. He is only worried about your suicidal tendencies.”

There was that, Steve had to admit. What had been his motive when he rushed to Zemo’s side into the quarantine lab, through the agents ready to riddle him with bullet holes? He had cared nothing about his own safety, his very life.

Had Steve been that disappointed? Disillusioned? Did he felt he couldn’t go on? Was he frustrated the war had ended and took his great task away from him?

When Steve had been a child, he had had these same thoughts. How everything would be better if he didn’t have to hurt any more. If he wasn’t such a burden to his mother or Bucky.

And in the army. When he was constantly demeaned and bullied by his superiors and at the same time watching his comrades to die. When he had to kill and kill and kill and he saw the fear and indignity in the eyes of the dying soldiers. Wouldn’t it have been easier to him not to exist? Yes, he would have answered to that question in a heartbeat.

In the cockpit of that damn airplane. When his dying lasted for hours. The impact had left him paralyzed, but if he could have moved even one of his finger, he would have found a way to push a shard of glass into his throat and been done with it.

Yeah, something like that. But those feelings always passed, so don’t you worry, Fury. Your little tin soldier is on the board again. Steve knew his role in this world and he acknowledged his will was not above Lord’s will, not in this life and certainly not in his death. And when the fight came to its natural end…

“Yes”, Samson had asked. “I am curious. What were you about to do when the peace came?”

Steve had always supposed he would die in the war. No need to dream or be scared of the things that would come after. There was nothing much to expect, anyway. General Markham would have done everything in his power to make his life, if not a hell on earth then nothing nice either, and his friend Peggy couldn’t do anything to help him without publicly announcing his secrets. And what good would that do, when the end result were the same: even if Steve avoided the prison, he would have been dishonorably (and discreetly) discharged. But then one of Steve’s comrades had told him a strange tale when they were in Paris, and he had realized there was a slice of hope, a real-life chance. His life didn’t have to end with the war, and it was all thanks to another little skirmish called the French Revolution.

After their own brief civil war, the French wrote their world anew, and for some reason they left out the laws which were in effect in everywhere else in the Western world. In France Steve would still be sneered at but what he did in his own home with another consenting adult (and behind the closed curtains and doors) would not be illegal. No sir, no chance to be dragged to prison or an asylum because of his _lifestyle choice_ _s_ (sic).

It was a chance to have a normal life. As normal as men like them could have, anyway. First time for a long while he felt a real hope swell in his heart. Steve had no sweetheart in his mind, but there was already a sketch for a plan; after the war he would move to France. He would work hard, help to rebuilt his new home country. Learn the language, and maybe later find somebody to share those good things. But all those dreams came to an end when he woke up from the ice.

Everything continued as usual. The battle. He didn’t know what else he could do in this new world in which children knew more about day to day life than he. Machines did all the physical labor, and for gentler jobs he had no idea from where to start. So the battle it was, in Fury’s different, vague war, and nobody waited to ask if he had any brawl left in him. His mother had been such a fighter. She stood up when she was hit down. She would be as disappointed in him as Steve himself was every time when he was tired and whiny like this.

What had been the question, anyway? Yes, that’s right. What to do with his life? There had been a new possibility when Helmut and he were in Germany. It had been nice. Peaceful. But it crashed and burned, and suddenly Helmut was dying and Fury was plotting to kill him and Steve just wanted. He wanted so much, and as usual everything good slipped through his fingers. After that realization, let’s say he was once again momentarily tired like all those previous times. The thought about losing Helmut too, bought all those other thoughts back. How he had no place in here, nobody. And Steve wanted to keep Helmut. At least him. In any way possible, even in death. His quick decisions were not always his best ones.

But now that Helmut lived, he couldn’t keep him, of course. In a real world Helmut was not a prince who gave Steve unicorns and engagement rings. Helmut was like a bad apple, still red and shiny outside even if its inside was rotten and dead, full of maggots. Steve’s prince charming was his dream turned into a nightmare.

A nightmare. How an accurate description.

“For fuck’s sake!” Steve shouted, a sudden anger making his voice crack. He was slowly awakening to realize his surroundings. Even without seeing properly in the darkness Steve knew it was not a military camp, but the other kind. “Not this shit again! Zemo, I know you are here somewhere! Show yourself!”

Zemo didn’t appear, but the searchlight from the watchtower started turning into his direction. Suddenly Steve felt almost animalistic fear. It made him back off until his palms met the coarse wood of the barrack wall. The light bypassed him a few yards and Steve shuttered, involuntary gasping a breath as he observed a high barbed wire fence and his own accoutrement. His pants were simple linen things, as were his shirt-like jacket. They both had blue white stripes, but Steve had a hunch this was not going to be a pajama party, no sir.

He had already seen Zemo’s mindplace, which had been full of battles and graveyards and air raids. So why not to continue a fine tradition by adding a Nazi concentration camp into the mix.

His body had started to shake, and only way to keep him upright was to lean on the barrack wall. Now was a good time for Zemo’s subconscious horrors to manifest themselves, but everything reminded as it was. Expect for the searchlight nothing moved in the darkness. The place was empty and silent. No one was near. Steve was all alone, filled with his own growing horror, as he stared at this new version of his lonely grave at the bottom of the sea.

\- -

Somebody laughed. Tony realized it was him making that noise. What were these? Some kind of flying Iron Nazis? Tony didn’t stay to introduce himself, but let his repulsors speak for him. He didn’t hit the flying armor which was now dodging desperately Tony’s blasts, but at least he hit something behind his target. Tony realized there had been a tower and it started to sway.

Never mind that. The sight passed out of Tony’s mind when he tried to shoot the robot again and now the tower swayed the last time, it tilted over and rumbled to the ground, parts of the flying debris hitting harmlessly his chest plate.

“Yeah!” Tony shouted. “Did you see that guys? You see this, don’t you? I don’t know why Steve is always nagging about my drinking when I have proved again and again I could hit all right.”

He flew lower. It was some kind of camp. Probably a Hydra base, he didn’t remember how and when he had gotten there. It should have worried him, but the adrenaline and whiskey were still circling through his system, making him giddy. He looked at the smashed searchlight at the top of the construction, and then he saw...

Tony screamed. It was not Hydra soldiers, but his own team rushed under the unrelenting weight of wood and iron bars. There was Thor’s hammer laying uselessly on the ground, out of reach, its magic broken. Janet’s back bare and vulnerable like somebody had plucked the wings out of an ordinary house fly. And Captain...

“Cap!” Tony shouted. “Steve!”

If Tony just found him, Steve could do something. Tony was sure of it. Steve could explain to him this was one huge misunderstanding as if Tony had not just killed his teammates by drinking and flying. He made a couple of panicky circles around the area but he didn’t find anybody, and finally his anguished cries abated as the maintenance system of his armor pushed a straw between his teeth, started pumping Hibiki into his mouth. Tony sucked, sucked, sucked, and finally everything faded away, panic and grief and anger turned soft-edged and mushy.

It was tragicomical how his fantasy and his worst nightmare could carry the same bittersweet tang of his favorite liquid.

\- -

Natasha heard the faint crash of the watchtower toppling over, but she didn’t act, being otherwise engaged. There was a sound she was following. This time she had decided to stay quiet, but the pitiful wail continued, making her resolve rumble. She pulled air to her lungs and out came a song. What was she now, a human bagpipes.

_Close your eyes, Bayu-bay._

_Ride your flying horse to the moon_

No, she wanted to scream, but her shout came out as a lullaby to the child,

_Slide down the rainbow_

for a baby never existing. A possibility that the doctors of the KGB had cut out from her body years ago, saying her becoming pregnant somewhere in the future would be

_Befriend with all the little animals_

unpredictable, unnecessary, and inconvenient (sic). Now she was trapped in this nightmare, feeling paralyzing longing for a child who had never existed and was never going to be. She had to find a way away from here. She had to stop and to think but the siren song

_And make wish with a feather of the Firebird_

of (her) baby’s cry didn’t let her stop. She continued forward in an empty space arranged like a maze. To the center, to find (her) child.

_Bayu-bay, Bayu-bay_

And when she would reach her destination, she knew, somebody would pay for this.

\- -

Steve had found the barrack door.

He expected to find a large space with dozens of cots, but this one had only a big four poster bed in the middle of the floor. The curtains were down, but Steve was a nightmare veteran, and he wondered what this set-up should represent. Maybe a not so subtle hint about his pre-war activities which were well-known by Zemo. If that was it, Steve could only repeat the old saying about pissing and raining.

He pushed the curtains aside and saw a man lying on the bed. He was a young soldier in the field gray German uniform, and judging from the blood stains on the sheets, he had been shot in the stomach not so long time ago.

“Zemo”, Steve sighed. “I’m sorry.”

This mindplace Zemo looked at him with tired eyes. “But you still followed your orders.”

“Yes I did”, Steve admitted. “That I feel sympathy for your suffering doesn’t mean I am sorry for what I did. I had a choice. To make the war end faster, or let more people die after your father completed the new weapons he promised to your dictator. I am sorry for what happened to you, but the war has its casualties. You were young but far from innocent. Your life against the lives of thousands of civilians and US soldiers? I don’t want to be unnecessary harsh to you, but that was not a choice at all.”

As in a dream, the situation changed so quickly Steve didn’t have time to notice where the bed and the barrack and the wounded soldier had gone. Instead in front of him stood the scary version of Zemo with its rotting face and eyes like black holes where stars go to die. Steve tried not to shudder or fall back as the grisly vision closed the distance between them and pushed its face forward. It tilted its head so Zemo-like it was laughable and Steve couldn’t help a tiny, hysterical snicker escape from his lips.

“Friend or foe?” the thing asked with a voice which sounded like gravel hitting the grave-diggers spade.

“Excuse me?”

The wraith tilted his head to the other side, as if by doing that it would measure Steve better. It repeated its question.

“Friend, I think.” Steve had no time to estimate if that had been a bad choice when their location changed again. They were now in the yard in front of the barracks. There were coffins in a neat rows, not artworks of polished mahogany, but coarse, hurried made boxes, dozens and dozens of them. The caskets were open and the bodies… Steve held his breath, but these were not people died of hunger and maltreatment he had seen seventy years ago when the US troops liberated a German concentration camp. No, these were way worse. Most of the bodies didn’t even look human anymore after going through painful looking mutations. There had been a prison camp near the village and then also castle Zemo. _By_ _G_ _od_ , Steve realized, _Arnim Zola must have used the prisoners in his experiments._ Probably the whole camp had been establish to give him more fodder for his trials of the Nazi version of super soldier serum.

“Zemo, you sick son of a bitch”, Steve muttered before he hurried after his guide. The trek was not long. The wraith stopped beside the heap of wood and iron bars which looked like remains of a watchtower. Behind the rubble a hunched figure sat on the ground, hugging himself with his arms. Steve crouched by him, because the dirty, devastated man was Tony. Steve called his name, but his teammate didn’t notice him, not even when Steve called him again and put his hand on his shoulder, shaking him a little.

“No”, Tony was mumbling. “No drinking and flying. No, no, no! No drinking and flying.”

Steve startled when cold, mummy-like fingers touched the back of his hand. The wraith was stooped down besides him and Tony, looking at him with his head tilted sideways. “Friend or foe?” it asked, meaning Tony.

“Oh fuck you, Zemo. Friend!”

Tony woke up, and for some reason shouted in panic as he saw Steve.

“Tony, are you alright?” Steve managed to ask, and then he had his arms full of billionaire superhero. Tony hugged his neck like a drowning man would grasp a life preserver.

“I killed you”, he said, putting his palm on Steve’s cheek and staring at him a desperate hope in his eyes. “Steve, I killed you all! I was drunk and I shot the tower… it was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it! Please, Steve. Don’t haunt me, I am so sorry. I promise I don’t ever drink again! Except in Maria Stark Foundation annual ball… and… no, scratch that. Never. I will drink never if you are… are you alive, Steve? Is that really you?”

“Yes, Tony. It’s me. Calm down, we have to...”

“Oh thank god! Steve!” Tony wailed and then he kissed Steve’s ear, wetting the collar of his shirt with his tears.

“Alright, Tony”, Steve said after a while. “You let go of me now or I will start to think you are planning new ways to grab my ass.” He rubbed Tony’s arms while separating himself gently from his hug. “Nothing you saw here is real. This is kind of nightmare. I too saw things. We are both trapped in Zemo’s mind. What is the last thing you remember?”

“Zemo?” Tony wondered. “Now when I think about it, I was at the SI main office, in a meeting, trying to convince the board. Oh fuck! They probably think I am dead, if I just keeled over. I will wake up and find myself already cremated, those vultures fighting over the control of my life’s work.”

“I doesn’t work that way”, Steve explained. “In a real world you are still breathing, but unable to wake up. I hope you read the report I wrote about my first mind trip.”

“Your story was mostly complains about Fury putting you on suicide watch. Was that true then, Steve? Did you try to kill yourself?”

“Tony”, Steve sighed. That was too complicated matter to discus right at the moment. “What do you...”

“Holy shit!” Tony interrupted him, noticing the first time the scary face Zemo, which was still standing besides them, patiently waiting something. Steve to notice it again, perhaps. “What the hell is that thing? A Nazi zombie?”

“I think it is Zemo”, Steve hesitated. “Kind of. It doesn’t speak much, though. I am not sure how much it understands either.”

“Well, ask it to get us out of here! I mean, what the hell is this place, anyway? Some kind of prison camp horror movie set? Those have been out of fashion for decades.” The realization dawned, making Tony sway in Steve’s grip. “Oh God, this is not a Nazi concentration camp, is it? Please, Steve. Say it is not so! Oh God!” Tony wailed. “Is there bodies? A vast hole in a ground and lots of naked dead people on the bottom of it? Is there dead _children_?”

Tony’s voice was rising again. “Zemo”, Steve called, trying to confuse Tony’s thoughts about the horrors his mind was browsing. The history books about the war and its aftermath had been aplenty and they were also very accurate and with too many pictures for Tony or Steve to feel comfortable. “Zemo, is the whole Avengers team here? Or just me and Tony? You took me to Tony, can you take us to the others too?”

First nothing seemed to happen, but suddenly Natasha was standing in front of them.

“Nat!” Tony shouted, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She was like Tony when Steve had first met him, in her own nightmare world. She was singing for some reason. And cursing. Then she started to shout in rage, looking straight at Steve: “Where is she? I can hear her. She is so close! Where have you taken her?”

A pair of Glock 26s raised and pointed at their heads. Steve didn’t know if they could be killed for real in Zemo’s mindplace but he didn’t want to try the experience.

“Who…” Steve begin, a stupid question again. Its time would be later. “Nat, it’s me, Steve! You must wake up! Zemo, do you thing!”

“Friend or fo…”

“Friend! Oh crap! Friend!”

Natasha made a halted step forward, looking dazed for a second. Then she lowered her pistols, coming to her right minds much quicker than Tony.

“Nat, are you okay?”

She pondered the answer for a brief while. “I have been better. That was unpleasant. This is Zemo again, isn’t it? Like he did to you, Steve. How about you? You look different.”

“Yes”, Steve admitted. His prison uniform had changed into those old-fashioned clothes he had used the last time he visited this place. Maybe it was safe to assume he was a teenager again. As Natasha noticed no further explanations were coming, she turned to Tony.

“Steve got me”, Tony explained. “He woke me from the nightmare with that… thing. You were all dead and I… How about you? Whom were you looking for?”

“Nothing particular”, Natasha said. It was not an invitation to continue on the subject and Steve let it go; this was not the time. “Who is your friend?” she asked instead, nodding towards the scary face Zemo. Her eyes were calculating and more than a bit curious as she appraised the wraith and her new surroundings.

“I don’t know if it is a who”, Steve confessed and not looking at the wraith. “Marigold Jones said Zemo has something she called avatars guarding his mindplace. I first thought this was Zemo himself, but its understanding is limited to some basic things.”

“How come it reacts to you then?” Natasha wondered. “Doesn’t it strike you odd Zemo’s avatar does your bidding?”

“Not particularly, no”, Tony said and wiggled his eyebrows to Steve. “Could you please ask your Nazi boyfriend to get us out of here, asap. Or to somewhere less ghastly.”

Steve ignored Tony, or at least his wording. “Could you take us there?” he asked the wraith, which was patiently waiting for him to speak at it again. “Do your know where Zemo is?”

“Yes”, the wraith said.

They didn’t move… but then they were again besides the coffins.

“Here?” Steve wondered, looking around. Only one of the coffins was closed, so it was an obvious choice. Steve tried to remove the lid, but it was nailed shut, and yes, a teenage Steve again, no powers.

“Tony, could you help”, Steve started. “Or you can do that first”, he mumbled when he realized Tony was silently retching after seeing glimpses of their surroundings. Even always so stoic Natasha looked grim as she studied the victims of Arnim Zola’s inhuman experiments. Steve remembered how he had been the first time in this strange mindplace. Zemo had made the baker’s maid vanish into thin air by snapping his fingers. He wondered could the wraith do the same thing, make all those coffins and their occupants disappear. He ruled against it though, because it felt dishonorable. As if he was tarnishing the memory of those who had suffered and lost their lives for their fellowmen’s pride and indifference.

“Tony, we need your gauntlet”, Steve said. “Rip the lid open and we can get Zemo, and then we are out of here.”

It was fascinating to watch how this mindplace Tony fluctuated between outfits. First Steve had seen him in his full armor, mourning their team, but when they found Natasha he had been in his fine fitting business suit. Now Tony had some ratty T-shirt and sweats he liked to wear when he was in his workshop, tinkering with his techno toys. He had his gauntlets though. Steve tapped encouraging his back and Tony gulped and hardened himself, ripping the lid in half in his haste to get the job done.

“Fuck, what is this age thing!” Tony was astonished. “He looks as young as you now, Steve. That uniform… all that blood, somebody has shot him. What the hell, I think he is dead.”

Steve had let lots of details out of his report. He had told only Fury about Helmut Zemo’s actual origins, his obvious ability to cheat the death, which for some reason didn’t seem to daze the Director. (And why would it? Steve himself had done almost the same trick.) He didn’t mention anything about Red Skull and his connection to the family. That had felt somehow too private piece of information to give without Zemo’s permission.

“If he is gone we are in a big trouble”, Steve mumbled. Tony was right. Zemo looked pale and utterly broken like the dead soldiers Steve had seen in the battlefield. Not a human anymore, only a shell which a soul had abandoned to the natural circle of life. But if Steve had learned anything in this place, he knew the things were not always as they seemed.

“Zemo! Wake up!” Steve ordered. He took hold of Zemo’s hand. “Don’t make me go all Snow White with you. Stop this drama, or God help me, I will...”

The wraith had stood aside, but Steve agitated voice disturbed it. It put its hand on Steve’s again and in his struggle not to scream in terror, Steve forgot what he had been saying. The wraith started merging with Zemo until it seemed like it was playing hide and seek inside his body. Finally only its skull-like face was displayed, looking like real Zemo was wearing a holographic Halloween mask.

“What the everloving fuck!” Tony was astonished. He bowed to study the sight and yelped when Zemo sat up. “Christ! Is this your favorite place for power naps? Fucking hell!”

“Steve?” Zemo asked.

“Yeah”, Steve confirmed, never minding Tony and his involuntary foolery. The genius inventor had his eyelids closed, reaching the edge of his breaking point. “Listen, we are here again, except this time you dragged also Natasha and Tony with you. Can you take us out of here? Your avatar had to merge into you to wake you up.”

“I see. Well, could you stand a place like this in your head without some tricks? He has no heart. He doesn’t feel anything, so with him I can see or hear whatever.”

That seemed to be working. It was like in the castle, Steve realized, when Zemo had watched Steve killing his parents through the wraith’s unmoved eyes. Zemo’s voice wasn’t as ghastly as the wraith’s, but it was far from his usual sophisticated tone, sounding monotonous and indifferent.

“You can’t get us out of here”, Steve said, already guessing it to be the truth.

“I still can’t”, Zemo confirmed. “I don’t know how. Ms. Jones was so busy building her useless wall she didn’t have time to show me. But as you have seen there are more comfier places here. We can wait there our transport.”

Then it was the sunny meadow again. A faint breeze fondled Steve’s simple linen clothes. Tony was now in a light colored summer suit and Natasha… Steve almost laughed but stopped himself, thinking better of it. He had never seen Natasha in any other clothes than a standard BNTU or jeans and a T-shirt. She was not a mud and blood caked mess as she had been at the camp, but wearing a simple blue checkered cotton dress. Her hair were more curly and wrapped with a scarf. Her shoes were sturdy and plain and even if Steve was a complete city boy, he could see a milking stool was the only thing missing from the scene. He was ready to bodily cast himself between Nat and Zemo, to inhibit her from vivisecting their ticket home, when he saw her approving nod.

“This is lovely”, she said, studying the helm of her dress. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Romanoff.”

Steve heard a muted knock as Zemo’s heels came together. Maybe it really was a German thing, automatic. The wraith had disappeared and Zemo was himself once again. Or the young soldier version of himself. The uniform was clean of blood and he had his cigarettes which he didn’t offer to Steve this time.

Red dots were spreading on the evergreen as flowers started sprouting out. They were poppies, which in Zemo’s mind meant a graveyard meadow.

“Sorry”, Zemo said, guessing Steve’s thoughts from his light wince. “Best I can do. In a real world I am somewhat agitated right now.”

Steve looked at him sharply. “Why? What happened?”

“Some family drama. I don’t think I will get lots of Christmas cards this year.”

Tony had opened his eyes. A faint and relieved smile played on his lips as he looked at red flowers kissing the sun.

“What’s wrong with these, Steve? Are you allergic to them or something? They are so pretty. This is much better... Oh look guys! Bambi!”

In a real life, the young roe would have escaped after Tony’s loud exclamation. (And it was indeed a roe and not a white-tailed deer as in a Disney movie.) On the meadow there hadn’t been any animals or even insects the last time Steve had visited the place, and he was curious to see what would happen when the animal came closer. What would the little thing do, show them some eyetooth? Somehow Steve didn’t think so. He wouldn’t have been alarmed at all, if Zemo hadn’t looked like his aneurysm was having a severe constipation.

“Come here… come here... Who is a pretty boy. Oh look, a pretty flower! You like them, don’t you… here we go. Let’s rub that tummy. You like uncle Tony, don’t you. Oh, don’t lick my beard, silly you!”

Zemo was blushed so red his face was scarlet when Steve turned his back to the fluffy sight and lowered his voice, preventing Tony to hear him. Natasha’s too-knowing eyes told him they had both come to the same conclusions.

“That fawn is one of your avatars, isn’t it? Does it change itself into a tank or something?”

“No. He has just been… he emerged when I was a kid. He just is. What I mean. When Tony touches him…”

“You can feel it.” Obviously.

“I feel something”, Zemo admitted. “Mostly there is this odd pulse. In the camp I was in a sleep, but I felt your teammates fear and sorrow, your anger. Sorry to say, but your emotions didn’t feel bad either. I don’t know. It was like I have been starving and...”

Zemo shrugged his shoulders. The helpless look was odd on a face Steve was more used to see smirking at him.

“What the hell Zemo”, he hissed. “Are you some kind of emotional cannibal?”

“That is quite accurate”, a mild speaking male voice said. “They sometimes call themselves PSI garbage man, because they literally live off other people’s emotional overflow. Usually that is harmless. In a big city an emphatic collector can harvest his or her daily dose by walking a few blocks in a busy street and nobody is wiser. But obviously that is not all that there is now. Let’s see… My, my. This place is impressive. One of the best mindprojections I have seen when we are talking about a person without any formal education on the field.”

Steve had taken a combat stance. They were both looking quickly around, trying to locate the owner of the disembodied voice. There was nothing, and what was even more disturbing, Tony and Natasha were nowhere to be seen. They had just disappeared.

“Oh, I am sorry”, the voice said. “Over here. Do you see the door? Can I come in?”

There was now an ordinary looking wooden front door, which was made odd only by the fact it had appeared on the meadow from nowhere. The door was ajar and a man in his late forties was standing at the threshold. He didn’t look hostile; on the contrary, he carried a benevolent smile and a pair of clear, intelligent eyes.

“Ten seconds, Herr Baron”, the man smiled as they stood there staring. “After that I will interpret your silence as a permission.”

Zemo sighed. “I don’t know how to impede you even if I wanted to. Please, sir. Come in. My mind has a property presentation going on and every visitor is wiping his muddy shoes on my living room carpet.”

The man chuckled. “Yes, that is the first things we usually teach our students: how to keep some privacy.”

“Your students, sir? Are you an actual teacher in psychic things?” Steve asked, wanting to know anything to assess if the man was as friendly as he seemed.

“Peculiar”, the newcomer mumbled, changing his interest into Steve. “At first I though you are an afterimage or an avatar, but you are you. And still here. You should be gone too… Ah.”

Steve didn’t like the sound of that little word. “What is it?” he asked, because the man seemed to be as intrigued as he was mournful when he studied him.

“That seems quite strong”, he observed, looking at somewhere between Steve and Zemo. “Was that an accident or on purpose?”

“Yes”, Zemo said.

“That was not so informative as I hoped”, the man mumbled. “Maybe we let that go for the time being. Now… As you can guess, Nicholas Fury informed me about your situation. Some introductions are in order. I am Professor Charles Xavier. I have indeed been a teacher. I have some authority in genetics, more precisely in mutations, which in your case seems to be a fascinating and unique combination of psi spectrum.”

“So… you are like Arnim Zola?” Steve ventured. “But a good guy version?”

Zemo snorted. “He is so humble it is prideful”, he explained to Steve. “My godfather can be the first, but alongside Professor Xavier and his team he is like a high school science teacher waiting for his retirement package. Professor Xavier is the founder of the first school for mutants, the head of the science team which advises president of all things in human genetics, and he himself is one of the most powerful psychics existing. You should read SHIELD files about the X-men, that antiterrorist mutant rebel group. The X? A dead giveaway.”

“It’s about the gene, not my… never mind”, Xavier said, given them a tight, self-conscious smile. “Captain Rogers, so delightful to make your acquaintances. We all have read about your adventures in the war. I see that those continue. No rest for the wicked, eh?”

“Yes, well… thank you, sir”, Steve said. He hadn’t noticed when he had stepped in front of Zemo. “Did Ms. Jones tell you what is going on?”

“Actually yes. She felt this situation was way over her pay grade. After what I have witnessed this far, I have to agree with her.”

“So bad then?”

“Not actually bad”, Xavier answered to Steve’s question, nodding at Zemo. “A very powerful, very unique mix of genetics, science and magic. I am intrigued to… but never mind that now. My associate should be here in any minute, and we have to send Captain Rogers back to his body before we can begin.”

“Like you sent Tony and Natasha? No burning knives through a head?”

“God heavens, no. No knives of any kind. Nothing will hurt.”

Like to prove the man a liar, Zemo’s face contorted in pain. He let out a sharp shout, grabbed his head. He would have fallen down when his knees buckled, if Steve hadn’t gotten a hold of him.

“You bald motherfucker!” Steve felt himself filling with adrenaline and rage as Zemo continued withering in pain. “What are you doing! You said you are not going to hurt him!”

Xavier gave him an apologetic smile. “Oh it is strange.”

“What!”

“Yes”, Xavier continued, talking now to somebody out of Steve’s line of perception. “That was uncalled for. I left a door open for you. No need to huff and puff the walls down.”

Oh that Strange, Steve realized as a golden circle appeared into the air and a tall man with a red cape stepped through it. Stephen Strange, a sourcerer supreme, and a part-time ally of the Avengers, was floating above the grass, as if being afraid that touching Zemo’s mind in any way would permanently soil his spirit.

“Zemo!” Steve called.

“I am conscious, no need to shout me awake again. Is that the mage you were talking about?”

“He is the one”, Xavier confirmed before Steve, his tone full of quiet disapproval. “You feel pain because Stephen here rampaged through your mindplace. Your avatars are confused and scared. You should call them and assure that you are alright.”

“Helmut, don’t”, Steve warned, not noticing he had called Zemo with his given name. Manifesting Bambi or Scary Face in front of the angry wizard would surely be a mistake. However, he had no time to do anything else than open his arms, when a little roe appeared from nowhere and run straight into his lap. It was shaking and its eyes were wide with fear. It tried to push its head under his arm and Steve didn’t think twice as he let it do it. Zemo had something more interesting going on than to ponder Steve’s armpit odors.

The wraith had stopped in front of the wizard and was looking at the man its head tilted sideways. “Friend or foe?” it presented the familiar question.

“What do you think, you monstrosity”, Strange said, giving it a nasty smile. “Foe. Certainly a foe. Are you trying to do something about it?”

“Guardian, don’t move”, Zemo said, when the wraith took a step forward. “He is too powerful for you. You can’t harm him.”

“Exactly. And now I am...”

“Guardian, why don’t you go to watch with Steve and Bambi? We can let Percival kick his haughty ass.”

The wizard’s cape made a funny-looking panicky movement, as if looking up while its oblivious owner was still talking to Zemo. Then the cape and Stephen Strange disappeared from sight when a giant foot stepped on them. As was usual in this place, the foot and the rest of the being appeared to the scene from nowhere. Steve stared at the apparition in awe. That was the stone knight he had seen before Marigold Jones had dragged them out of Zemo’s mindplace for the first time. The knight was at least fifty feet tall and dressed in a long mail shirt and a great helm with a pointed top. The helm hide his expressions, but he didn’t seem to be happy as he stomped on the wizard a few more times and then penetrated his remains with his enormous long sword.

“I think Stephen got your point”, Xavier said evenly. For some reason, he was now sitting in an easy chair. There was a small table and a tea set. Xavier put a sugar cube into his cup and whirled his spoon in tea a couple of times. “Stephen, if Joy and Fear didn’t make an impression, I hope you enjoyed the touch of the classic virtues. Courage or Justice, I presume? Our minds are usually bit vague, and the younger we are…”

Xavier put his cup back on the table and reached with his hand. Bambi made a short jump from Steve’s lap and took cautious steps forward until it was able to smell the man. Zemo’s face was carefully neutral as the roe licked Xavier’s fingers. “This little fellow tells me you have enjoyed Felix Salten’s novel about Bambi’s live in the woods”, Xavier stated to Zemo. “An Austrian writer who loved outdoors and hunting. An excellent role model for young, brisk boys.”

Except Salten was a Jew and Nazi-Germany banned his books in 1936. As Zemo stated aloud, looking like he was ready to roll his eyes at Xavier’s obvious sarcasm. “Yes, and as a teenager, lots of Anglo-Saxon legends”, Zemo continued, “in Latin, mind you, stories about great deeds, code of chivalry, protect the weak and so on.”

“No wonder your knight is so strong that even fear has to bow to his power.”

What ever that meant.

Strange gave an investigative look towards Zemo. The magician had suffered no lasting damage, only his dignity was bruised and still bleeding. “Charles”, he said. “He walked right through my mental shields.”

“Yes, obviously. And if he gets some training I bet he could give your archnemesis run for his money.” _The thing you have_ _never_ _been able to do properly_ , was hanging unsaid in the air.

“Enough”, Strange snapped. “You called me here for a reason.”

Xavier’s brow pinched as if he had met some unpleasant thought in his friend’s head. “Stephen, irrelevant.”

“Charles, why are you acting like this? We are not torturers. Don’t play with him like a cat with a mouse, that is beneath you. Let’s start then. You saw how corrupt and powerful he is”, the wizard said pointing at Fear and Courage, as Xavier had named Zemo’s avatars. “Let’s move this threat for once and for all.”

Steve didn’t stay to wait the things which were about to happen. He knew the uselessness of his gesture, but he couldn’t help himself when he grabbed the table and stroke it with all his might on Xavier’s head.

“Now look what you did”, Xavier said to Strange as pieces of wood and expensive china fly in the air like spring butterflies. “No, Captain Rogers, you can calm down. When Director Fury asked us to remove the threat, it is now obvious to me we both made a different interpretation of his request. You have my world we are not going to hurt him.”

“We are not?” Strange wondered.

“No, Stephen. You are here because I have too feeble knowledge of magic, and now we are in a situation which that won’t do. Baron Zemo”, Xavier addressed the man. “Your mind contains a particular memory of a spell which was performed when you were in your preteens. Could you tell us what happened?”

“Couldn’t you just look?”

“I try not to snoop around in other people’s memories if it is not absolutely necessary. What we need now Stephen, is to remove that spell. I think the way it is intertwined with his pudding mutant powers is the beginning of all our griefs.”

The wizard nodded stiffly, and then he started asking the details. What was a purpose of the spell? When was it cast and where? Who was the caster? Did Zemo remember the wording or any details about the occasion? And so on. That was a story Steve hadn’t heard, even if he and Zemo had shared a lot during their week together in Germany. It started with increasing hormone levels of teenage Helmut Zemo and too long stares and touches with the stable master’s youngest son. Helmut’s father had noticed those signs and decided it was the time for a traditional chastity spell, which would help Helmut to keep himself pure for his shieldmate, making that future bond stronger in progress (it seemed that ancient spells used human sexual drive as their primary power). They shouldn’t have been any problems, the spell had been used in their family for centuries, but somehow when it was cast on Helmut, something went horrible wrong.

As the spell touched Helmut there was a pulse of energy which killed the caster and his assistant immediately. Helmut himself subsided into a coma-like sleep for almost a month. His parents called in experts in medicine or magic, but nobody couldn’t explain what had happened or what they could do to help Helmut. After those weeks, when everybody but papa Johann had lost all hope of his ever waking up again, he raised from the bed like any other morning, wondering his stiff back and legs to his papa who had been camping in Helmut’s room this whole time. At first nothing seemed to be wrong. Papa Johann and his other parents may have been delirious with joy after his recovery, but Prussian nobles were not well-known of their overflowing physical shows of affection. It took four additional days before the family realized what the spell had actually done.

A chastity spell in its simplest form should make sexual arousal feel uncomfortable, and so to prevent unwanted sexual interaction. Those general spells were usually used for teens. There were also spells you could personalize, for example, leaving a person unable to feel sexual feelings towards anybody but a special someone. Or punish those feelings with pain or nausea. There were many variations, and soon it seemed poor Helmut had gotten the worst of them. He couldn’t touch, not even shake hands with anybody, without feeling uncomfortable. If it had been limited only to a skin-to-skin contact, it would have been more tolerable, but it seemed to be anything. When his favorite dog died in a hunting accident, and papa Johann put his glove-covered hand on his clothed shoulder as a comforting gesture, he screamed in agony. An instructor touched him with his boxing glove, and he had to rush to vomit into the trash can. And so on. His life became easier during the time, but it was clear that his family obligations, like siring an heir or taking a shieldmate, would be very hard or maybe impossible to fulfil.

Covering helped after a few years. For some reason, maybe psychological, the thickest materials were not the best and he ended up using soft moleskin gloves like a prissy old maid. He learned to make a show of it. When Helmut Zemo started to pull his gloves off one finger at time, people around him had exactly one minute and twelve seconds to tremble and wait what would happen next (never anything pleasant, he made sure of it.)

He became to known as a man who never took a lover, never had sex just for fun. He was a virgin soldier dedicated only to the cause, a legend who was as much admired as he was mocked at.

“Wait a minute”, Steve said. Something in that tale didn’t sit right. “He could touch me without any problems. And I have seen him touching people too. Does that mean that the spell is not working anymore?”

“Yes, those silly things are designed to cease existing during the wedding night”, Strange explained and gave Steve a taunting smile. “It seems that somebody has been dipping in the honey pot. I wonder who is the happy bride?”

“Stephen”, Xavier admonished his partner.

 _Wedding night_ , Steve wondered. There had been no ceremony, but lots of what came after. And the spell was dedicated to keep Helmut pure not for his bride, but for his shield mate.

“Did he do his hocus pocus mate thing with me?” he asked Xavier, ignoring the magi. “Did that happen? Are we mating or whatever that is? Can you see it in our heads?”

“That seems to be the case. The glimpses I have seen from both of your minds, you have given your bond plenty of nutrition, the connection seems to be a strong one.”

“You mean we had lots of sex”, Steve huffed. “Can’t it be broken?”

“Well”, Xavier said, nodding towards Zemo. “I am not sure what parts of it are magical, some crucial part probably is, because your family has used this type of bonding for generations. It’s possible that you all have the same mutant gene which is needed to this kind of connection, but it is unlikely. Nevertheless, the bond can be ignored. The connection is no aphrodisiac in itself and doesn’t make you want to have sex with each others, if you are not that way inclined. Like all connections between people, it needs nurturing, physical and mental. More you both ignore it, more it will dim during the time.”

Steve noticed he was pushing his hand over his chest where Zemo’s signet ring was still under his shirt.

 _The bond_ _could be ignored_ , Xavier had promised. Fury could write the situation off as one of the goofiest adventures in which the Avengers ended up on the top, but Steve, he would still have this lingering yearning for a wanted terrorist leader, who represented all those foul things Steve had worn to opposite. After Zemo had been twenty years in prison, would Steve still be pining for his presence, his voice, his smile? His touch?

 _It could be ignored. I_ _t_ _will dim._

Waiting the pain to end. That seemed to be the main theme in the story of Steve Rogers’s life.

“Wonderful”, Steve sighed. “Don’t you dare”, he snapped at Zemo, when he opened his mouth to say something. Bambi gave him sad puppy eyes (or fawn eyes?) but he ignored him too. “So after you have done your thing”, he turned back to Xavier. “He doesn’t need to put people into the la-la-land just to eat their emotions? No nosebleeds or headaches? You can fix all that?”

“Yes, indeed. As you guessed, the most of that was the spell’s doing, it was fighting your genes, your natural need to be near people while existing as an empath”, Xavier explained to Zemo and his avatars. The wraith had its head tilted so far it was pushed onto its shoulder. It was listening diligently, trying to understand things way over its comprehension level. “After Stephen has removed all reminds of the spell, you should be able to function like any other emphatic collector. No need to use such an extreme measures to get your sustenance.”

Like abducting people into his mindplace and scaring them half to death with the worst nightmares possible. Or screwing people’s heads and making them act like drunken asses just to give them joy, their heart’s desires.

“Great news”, Steve said with more than a hint of sarcasm. (And yes, he had been petting Bambi while they talked, who cold-hearted scoundrel wouldn’t do that.) “You guys have some work to do, and I have a report to write. Why don’t you get me out of here we can get on with our tasks.”

“I don’t mind you staying”, Zemo said his voice quiet.

“I do”, Steve stated and started walking to the direction he had seen the door the last time. “I hope you deliver him back into his body at the SHIELD base. Director Fury would be all kinds of pissed off, if you zap him out of his cell and to some other continent or psychic plane.”

For his astonishment, it wasn’t Bambi who came after him. The wraith tried its version of puppy eyes, and it looked so horrible and hilarious Steve had to bit his teeth together not to burst into laughter. He was afraid that once started he wouldn’t be able to stop until the tears came.

“Captain Rogers”, Xavier said. He and the door had appeared besides Steve. Steve tried to grab the handle, but Xavier’s fingers ghosting over his arm halted the movement. “Please, don’t do anything hasty you will regret afterwards. It _will_ get better. Maybe the situation will end in a way you want. You just need to be patient for a little while.”

Had Xavier seen something in Helmut’s mind? But what ever it was, Steve knew it couldn’t be enough. Nothing was, when under that gentlemanliness Helmut was all those abhorrent things people had falsely accused Steve to be just because he had been born homosexual.

“I don’t see how that can be possible, but you’re right. My hasty quota is full. From this moment on, I will let you and Director Fury handle this as you please.”

Something stupid flashed in his mind, making him a liar. Maybe he should grab Zemo and they should escape to some remote, tropical island from where SHIELD or Hydra couldn’t find them.

“Damn”, Steve let out a disgusted sigh as the image in his head changed into more carnal activities. “Sorry, sir.”

“Never mind, Captain. I can’t give you time estimate, but we try to work as fast as we can. Baron Zemo has much to learn before he can safely return.”

“Alright”, Steve nodded. The door had opened and he stepped through it, wondering maybe he had been too fast to trust the man. Perhaps he wouldn’t see Helmut Zemo ever again. The thought filled him with sorrow but also with sick relief. The little angel and the little devil were fighting in his mind, and he had no idea which one he wanted to win.


	11. Face/Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Without Helmut Steve goes cold turkey. Without his lovely Hibiki Tony crashes even harder than Steve. Introducing Zachariah McGinnis to the Avengers team doesn’t go as smoothly as Fury expects.

Back in the SHIELD New York compound (or back home as Steve had tentatively started to call the place) Steve fell back into his old routine. Or he tried to. When he wrecked the first punching bag, he realized he had to keep it down, or Director Fury would sic Doctor Samson on him. He did the weighs instead, and added to his runs, but finally it made no difference. There was now a certain corridor, maybe its floor was made some sci-fi friction material, because his feet slowed down while he walked on it, halting him at the same place; near the room which was hosting Helmut’s body. It had been three days already, and the Helmut’s skin was once again riddled with needles and tubes which brought him nutrition or fluids or took care of his waste. An adult man in diapers, it should have been humiliating, but when he thought back to the weeks he himself had been hanging from the manacles and pissing and shitting himself in a process, he had to admit this was much cleaner. Probably he wouldn’t have been so eager to hang around Helmut’s bed if the man had stunk to high heaven. He wouldn’t sit there like a creeper, staring at the cover of the mind which was now elsewhere. Professor Xavier hadn’t contacted Fury and told them about his progress, and Steve couldn’t decide was that a bad or a good omen. Maybe both at the same time.

A vampire in his coffin. When did Steve become one of his mother’s favorite novels? A Gothic maiden who couldn’t stop staring at the monster, waiting the sun to go down, to get a kiss, the vampire’s eternal curse. Except Steve already had one. And it was getting worse.

Steve wondered should their connection really feel this way. Helmut’s ancestors had been warriors. How were they supposed to function in the battlefield, when all Steve wanted to do was to scrawl into the bed beside Hydra Commander, to circle him into his arms? He wanted to cuddle Helmut, touch him, rub his own smell on him, lick salt from his skin. If Steve could have become an atom, he would have dived into Helmut’s very bones, born again in his marrow, voyaged in his blood stream until they literally become one being.

Some part of Steve knew something was very wrong. Surely Charles Xavier would have warned him from these thoughts if he had known what Steve was going through? Reactions of the others told him he had become erratic. His strategic mind, which Helmut had liked so much, started run through scenarios which were on the paranoid side of conspiratorial theories. He lingered in Helmut’s room, made excuses to himself to see the man. Four times a day, and nurses started looking at him funny, or maybe his confused mind only interpreted it so. Maybe he should have showered before his latest visit, but during his exercise he had this feeling something terrible was happening. Nothing had changed, though, and Steve took again his lonely guardian post beside the bed. Fury had for some reason given him a free rein to visit the sickbay. An opportunity to make an ass of himself (again), Fury meant, because surely he hadn’t done that to Steve just to be civil. No, he had some other plan in that black leather sleeve of his.

Unable to concentrate enough to read, Steve run some more and lifted weight and screened Samson’s calls. Then Tony called in the middle of his second daily run and asked him to the mansion. Had Steve forgotten their usual movie night? Steve hadn’t, but he wasn’t sure he could handle sitting in the sofa without fidgeting, and he refused. Tony asked what was wrong. Steve said he was fine.

“Sure, Capsickle. Keep repeating that. If you don’t want be among the crowd, how about meeting in a coffee shop with uncle Tony? I found this new place...”

He didn’t need coffee to pep him up. Tony neither. Like alcohol it didn’t affect Steve, but after their usual three-quarters sitting, Tony was usually like a squirrel in cocaine. (Steve had seen a meme about it. Not Tony, but a squirrel.)

“It’s called coke”, Tony laughed. “C-o-c-a-i-n-e. Shit, that sounds like Great Gatsby at the pool party, and we all knew how that ended.”

That was Tony, slandering one of literature classics with his own bad habits.

“There is a movie made of that book”, Tony continued his ramblings. “Several, if I recall right… My mother used to make me read… never mind. You want that? Or Titanic? Both have DiCaprio, only good thing in those… Except Winslet’s left tit, that was nice too. I bet they were two of the kind, but DiCaprio’s notebook covered the right one, you know… Or you don’t. I can suffer thought that film if you want… No? Like no means no? You sure?”

After their trip into Helmut’s mind Steve had felt oddly connected to Tony and Natasha. As if he and his teammates had become closer, or something.

Don’t think about connections. Oh god. Helmut!

Steve ended the call and hurried to the sickbay. He expected to see the usual unmoving form bundled in the bed, but Helmut’s place was empty. The bathroom was empty too and the nurses only raised their shoulders when he asked after him.

A cold rage filled Steve’s mind. This situation was all too familiar.

It was no use to ask any more questions. Those nurses and doctors were innocents. They didn’t know about Fury’s machinations. The cold-eyed science lady remained in Texas, and these people were not going to give Helmut a lethal shot. But it didn’t mean Fury hadn’t asked his people to remove Helmut to some secret location. Maybe it would be sensible. Hydra was in turmoils, some info leak or something, it had been all over the news, but Steve had been too worried about Helmut to find out what that was really about.

Steve raced to his room, taking a quick shower and putting his uniform on. He fastened his helmet and grabbed his shield. Agents meeting him in the corridor jumped aside as he marched to the door of Fury’s office.

“Captain, I am in the middle of the meeting”, Fury’s voice said through the microphone. His voice sounded annoyed, and took a worried tone as the camera showed him Steve had taken a combat stance. He was god-honest ready to try how long the door of Fury’s office could withstand his shield, when there was a buzzing sound and the door opened.

“Where is he?” Steve snarled, stepping inside. “I went to the sickbay, and he was gone. Where are you…”

Then he felt it. Steve’s heart started to beat faster and faster until it felt as if the organ was leaping from his chest.

“Cap?” Fury said, but Steve had turned to stare at the man who was sitting in the visitor’s chair. Reddish brown hair and freckles. Green eyes. A tall guy, but not as wide as Steve as he noticed when the man stood up. For a moment he had thought…

“Where...” Steve begin, turning again towards Fury, when the stranger talked. It was nothing particular, but it captured his attention.

“Helmut...” he uttered. It was nonsense. Helmut was nowhere to be seen, Fury had done something to Helmut again, and Steve felt like dying. Their connection was pulling him towards… Why he felt this connection to some stranger?

“Steve”, the stranger was now saying his name. But that felt wrong. Every word was a hook in his skin, every sound a dagger piercing his ears. “Do you see me? The real me? How can you... Steve, what is wrong?”

Steve shook his head. “I am not crazy.”

“No”, the man said and cupped his cheek with his hand. “You are sweaty. Trembling. Are you in pain? Fury, what is going on?”

“I have no idea. He checked on you a few times a day, and I thought either you two have come into agreement or he is his usual chivalrous self. Steve? Son? Can you sit down? Or at least put your shield away. You are making us nervous here.”

Steve didn’t hear Fury. He didn’t see him or anything else than this stranger who was pulling him like Helmut but who was not Helmut, the feeling was like he had lost Bucky but tenfold. No, scratch that. Hundredfold.

The pain, which was not actual pain, increased, and he knew he was going to die, to burst until there was nothing left of him but a few wet smudges on the office floor. What was he doing in this world, anyway, where even soap didn’t smell like soap? Where a shop had twenty different branches of canned tomatoes? Where people, movies, music, everything was too fast and noisy? When all he wanted to do…

He was standing barefooted in the grass.

It was the endless meadow again. His shield was gone, as was his uniform, and he was wearing his old-fashioned civilian clothes. Steve shouted for Helmut, but the man didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. This was not Helmut’s mindplace, because the man in Fury’s room had not been Helmut Zemo. And if that was not the case, the fact remains his mind was finally losing it, and Steve would wake up in those sci-fi manacles again. He tried to picture the cell and the drain in the tile floor and Doctor Samson standing beside him, shaking sadly his head, but still making notes about his incoherent ramblings.

Steve let his body lose the tension and crouched down. It didn’t take long until he felt a gentle nudge on his back. A cold and wet nose was pushed into his neck when Bambi tried to get close enough to nuzzle him.

“Oh God!” Steve wailed. “Helmut...”

Bambi let out a sad whine. The trembling little thing put his tiny front legs on his lap. This was starting to feel too real for Steve’s taste to be only a fabrication of his own mind. And if it was, what harm would it do if he comforted the roe.

“Shh”, Steve hushed. “Shh, shh, little one. Do not worry, I bet he is all right where ever he is. He will take care of you all… that Xavier fellow probably taught him how, and now Helmut will travel with him to his school, and he will learn some more… I bet Fury let him do that just because he wants Helmut out of his hands.”

He talked while petting Bambi, and somehow it consoled both of them. Becoming his old self was like waking from some weird daytime nightmare. He was now sure he was not hallucinating, he indeed was in Helmut’s mindplace. That had to mean the man in Fury’s office had been Helmut, but why hadn’t he looked like himself? And why had he tried to hide his face from Steve?

Steve got a chance to ask. As suddenly as the meadow and Bambi had appeared, the scene changed, and he was in Fury’s office again. The director himself was standing a few yards away from him, watching him with tense set in his shoulders.

“That _was_ spooky”, Fury said. “As you warned, he just stopped and stood there staring.” Then he continued, addressing Steve: “Cap, are you alright? Do you feel any better now?”

Steve nodded.

“Sorry about that, but you almost decapitated Fury with that frisbee of yours.”

His shield had sunk deep into the wall behind the director’s desk. Steve looked sheepishly at the man who had talked to him.

“Helmut?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look like yourself.”

“I shouldn’t”, Helmut admitted. “As you probably already know, there is another warrant for my head, this time issued by Hydra. The reward is ten million thus far, double if I am captured alive for their trial. Your wizard armored me with an appearance altering spell, that’s why I look as I look now. Strange assured me it should fool even the most advanced DNA scanners. Not our connection, though.”

“No”, Steve had to admit. “This is really confusing. You kind of slide… like this moment I am seeing and hearing the real you and the next I am not.”

“Cap, what I want to know is are you in your right minds again”, Fury said and his only eye squinted as he looked between them. “Your team is here and the meeting is about to begin in fifteen minutes.”

“The meeting?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers. That meeting I mailed you about. You answered with thumps up. You do know that particular emoji means agreement?”

“Yes?” Steve said. He had no idea what Fury was talking about. The last few days were only hazy blur in his mind.

“Should we re-schedule?” Helmut asked. “If Steve has to catch up...”

“Captain Rogers can do it on the fly. He is not a child or an imbecile, so don’t treat him like a such. Unlike many other man, Captain knows where his duty lies. We meet at the B-307 in ten.”

Steve found himself in the corridor with Helmut. Of course Fury wouldn’t wait or share. Steve was nobody important. Just a light pump on the road of Director’s big plans.

“You were not supposed to know me”, Helmut hesitated. “When Xavier said our connection will dim, I assumed that was what you wanted. As you heard, Fury is not happy about the situation.”

“Which one?” Steve had to ask. “This meeting, whatever it is… or us?”

“There is us?”

A pair of hopeful green eyes stared at him from the face of a stranger. Steve had no answer for Helmut. Or he had, but he couldn’t utter it aloud. It felt cruel. Wrong. Even thinking about it made his insides turn around. _Stop it,_ he said to himself. _I_ _t’s_ _only_ _some stupid magic, it will dim, then everything will be as it_ _used to be_ _._

Fortunately, just before Steve was about to plunge himself at Helmut’s feet and swear his neverending love and loyalty to that disgusting Nazi scumbag, Thor’s voice bellowed a greeting. The Asgardian was coming from the elevator he had been sharing with Janet and Tony, who, as usual, was asking a piggy-back ride from Steve, this time under disguise of his sore hallux.

Helmut walked silently behind them as the three heroes continued their way to the meeting room.

  
  


*

  
  


Tony looked around in the meeting room. They were all there, the white male super fraternity with their sorority sidekicks and the mascot PoC, as one of the Twitter users had called them. It was true that the gore group of the Avengers, meaning Steve, Thor, and Tony himself, looked to the outsiders a typical privileged bunch of jerky jocks. The princes of an alien kingdom and a technological empire plus one national hero. If they had a trinity, where was the Amazon? Instead the team had a fashionista who could shrink herself and a redhead with no powers whatsoever.

 _Oh boy how wrong they are_ , Tony thought as he let his eyes linger on Nat’s petite form. The spy flash assassin raised her brow in a questioning manner. Tony turned quickly his gaze into Janet’s cleavage, which was quite nice in her new outfit. The Winsome Wasp would have been his co-leader partner if a certain somebody hadn’t popped up from the ice; she was clever and resourceful that way. (But Cap was of course more known to the great public and as a new group they needed lots of positive PR.) Maybe she was not a top level strategist, but their little group had no need for that, or did they? What was with Fury this time, introducing that new guy as their _operative leader_? What the heck was that anyway? Was Fury saying he and Cap hadn’t done their job right? And what kind of name was Z? Was he a former boy band member?

He was the guy behind that massive info leak. A whistler-blower Nazi then, better than Ginger Spice. After all those sermons about Tony’s recreational beverage use, sexcapes, and drunken scandals Fury wanted a former Hydra member as a new Avenger. Talk about hypocrisy! And of course the ginger had to be a token white guy even if they already had one of those.

“Yeah, Hawkeye, I was talking about you”, Tony mumbled because as usual his mouth had been faster than his brains. “I mean, as the user @ _AvengersDissemble_ stated in his viral hit tweet last week, we have white males aplenty and half of them are blondes with ocean blue eyes, so maybe a former Hydra member would feel like home right away, but Fury, come on! If you want more members, why not a black guy, some powerful as fuck black bro, because Falcon there is useless in that department. Sorry Sam, but face the facts: you don’t even fly yourself, you have mechanical wings, which I have to repair constantly by the way. The rest of the time you stand on the edges of tall buildings claiming you are talking with the birds, and then my doctor says _I_ am the one with a condition.”

“Wilson, sit down!” Fury roared. “If I see even a feather here and it is trying to attack Tony, you are out of this meeting! And Tony, shut the fuck up! What the hell is wrong with you? And I mean more than usual.”

“I may be wrong”, Tony tried to explain. “I mean a black chick or maybe Latina, that would be even better as a publicity stunt. We have a geriatric, an alien, a billionaire, one powerless loser of both colors, those quotas are already full… but a powerful African American woman… how about that new Captain Marvel? That white shiny uniform of hers… she would look really hot with Janet here. Maybe Janet could do a pair to that skimpy thing she is wearing? I know, that charity thing she was planning, maybe a calendar? Miss December, how I would like to warm with her in front of the fireplace. _Ho, ho, ho, Santa is coming!_ Sorry, I meant of course Ms. December.”

“Tony”, Steve was saying. By the looks of their fearless co-leader, he had been repeating himself some time. “I am from the 40s and even I know that changing it from Miss to Ms. is not making your case any better.” Then there was Steve’s usual speech about coming to the meetings under the influence, and all that after Tony had promised to him to stop drinking. That was right, he had made that promise while hugging Steve’s lifeless corpse in Zemo’s crazy headworld.

“What!” Falcon exclaimed. “What corpse? When did that happen?”

“Doesn’t anybody here read mission reports?” Fury sighed. “Tony, if you are not feeling well, it will be better you leave now and talk with Samson.”

“Yeah, about that”, Tony remembered. “I am not high, Steve. Or caffeinated, or… I am just… I am me. This is me. I asked Doctor Samson to sign me into a rehab program. It has its difficulties, yes? I mean, when I drink my brains slow down, yeah, that’s it, I can concentrate, but now… it has been five days, and Samson said it will take at least a few more until I can start a medication which has the same effect than booze, but hopefully without all those nasty side dishes. Before that, no filter. No more Iron Man. And Hawkeye, put your arrows in a good use, there will be no more specialties for you until my hand stop imagining itself as a beater in a cream bowl. Widow, same with your bites.”

“We will be alright, Tony”, Nat said. “Do not worry about us. Just get better.”

“Thanks, I will. I hope. Please ignore me. I came ‘cause Fury asked me to back Steve up.”

“Yes, Tony, and I appreciate that”, Steve said, looking chagrined. “In this situation more than ever. I probably missed your mail, I have had some difficulties of my own.”

“Yes, Fury told me. Thank God Strange and Xavier took care of that Zemo bastard! Hope he rots in what ever dimension dungeon they locked him up. But how about his colleague here? I mean, if this a job interview, shouldn’t Ginger Spice show us some other credits than being a traitor?”

“Betraying your shieldbrothers’ trust”, Thor mumbled, furrowing his magnificent brow. “We have a special place for those men in Asgard. Yes, Man of Iron speaks true words. How would our glory as warriors not diminish with such a snake in our mist?”

“Speaking about snakes”, Fury stated. “How is your brother, Loki? Still trying to usurp the crown of Asgard from your father?”

“Oh, burn”, Hawkeye smirked. “But how about we all being honest here, not just Tony. Fury, what is really going on? What’s the deal with the guy?”

“There is no deal”, Fury claimed. “Sometimes people see the error of their ways and they chance direction.”

That was lacking as the explanations went, and Tony saw from his teammates’ expressions they were sharing the same thought.

“Come on, Fury”, Falcon was backing the other bird up. “What is the real deal here? Why did he do it? Why to betray Hydra? Who persuaded him? Was it you, Cap?”

“Well, if Fury sweetened the deal with my all-American ass, I haven’t gotten a memo.”

“No way! Not another Tony”, Falcon laughed which was a bit rude, but Tony had been lots of rude against Sam some five minutes go, so he let it roll. He didn’t like Steve’s saccharine nasty tone. Something was really bothering the super soldier, and that made Tony’s too busy brains scream in red alert.

“At least tell us what the ginger has done”, Hawkeye was saying. “If it is something which may come back to bite us in the ass, we really need to know.”

“That is a bit thick coming from you, Clint. As a former petty criminal...”

“Yes, Nicholas”, Janet’s calm words interrupted Fury’s attack. Why was the big man so defensive about the new guy? “Please emphasize the word petty. A membership of that terrorist organization means prison sentence in many countries, including the USA. What is so special about him it will justify an amnesty?”

“Oh. Like we did with agent Romanoff, you mean”, Fury shot a big gun right at her face, but Janet pushed her hair back behind her ear and continued her observations. “Nat has proven her loyalty to the team and this country time and again. He is a stranger. There is no guarantee. If you are giving us nothing but that he is behind the info leak, I have to agree with my colleagues and vote no.”

All around Tony his teammates were nodding. They had no actual power to make that decision, the Avengers were SHIELD operatives and as the director of the organization Fury could arrange their assembly as he pleased. But in reality… who in his right mind would go to the life and death situations with a team which didn’t have his back? This ginger guy looked bright enough to refuse the honor, if the Avengers were dead set against him, no matter what promises Fury had made.

“No guarantee?” Fury mused. “My word is not good enough for you any more?”

Steve’s sarcastic snort sounded too loud in the silence of the meeting room. After a few seconds Hawkeye started also laughing, then Sam and Janet, and even Thor’s booming holler echoed from the walls even if Tony was sure the alien prince didn’t actually know what had made his teammates so hilarious. Nat had lowered her lids and was smiling that tight little smile of hers which always reminded Tony about sharp and rusty things which may or may not nick his fingers while he was rummaging his father’s old storage boxes.

The most heart-breaking thing, though, was that Fury looked honestly offended by their reaction. Before the one-eyed menace was able to say anything to escalate the situation, the ginger guy pushed his chair back and was up, spreading out postcard-sized papers. He was talking about how this had been a stupid idea to begin with and how Fury was not helping, only ripping his team apart.

“What was the plan”, he admonished the director, who seemed to listen. “To wait that Captain will grow tired of his passive-aggressive eyeballing towards me? Rogers knows my true identity anyway, so it is not realistic for you to wait he wants to work with me without any explanations. Didn’t you learn anything from that previous mess? You have lost his trust not even once but twice already, so maybe you should step carefully. And if you start explaining to him, you should explain to everybody if you insist making a target of your whole team.”

“Such a brave words”, Fury huffed. “I hope you will not regret them.” Fury gave the ginger an angry but oddly sad smile and then a weird thing happened. Fury hopped to talk about Arnim Zola and how he must have destroyed all the clone bodies and those biomagical tracks he had made about the ginger’s brain patterns.

“This time you die, there will be no resurrection, you will be gone for real.”

“Believe me, I am well aware.”

“Whoa! Time out!” Tony was the first one to voice his opinion of the bizarre conversation. “What are you two talking about? Who the hell is this guy?”

“We have better converse about that face-to-face”, the ginger explained. “I have given you all a piece of paper. It seems empty but it contains a disposable key rune to the spell which is hiding my true appearances. Look at that paper for about ten seconds and you will see me as I am for real.”

Shit, magic! Tony hated magic. Nevertheless, he did as the ginger had instructed, but reluctantly. He had been slower than Clint or Janet who were now staring at the ginger with an open-mouthed disbelieve.

“What is this, Fury”, Janet’s normally calm and warm voice was now full of tight-coiled rage. “We beat up the Masters of Evil a few months ago, so what is their leader doing out of his cell? Applying to be one of us? And you, Nicholas. You honestly thought we shouldn’t know about this turn of events? That we just have to trust you? What if there had been another magic user and this spell or what ever it is, would have been lifted during a battle? What about the consequences when we suddenly see Baron Helmut Zemo in a place where we used to have a trusted teammate? Don’t you think it will spoil our concentration? Maybe in a lethal way?”

“Never mind that”, Hawkeye growled. “I may be a former criminal, but I am not some murdering terrorist scum. Don’t you guys recall the Sydney bombing? And how about that looney tune disease? Is he still infected? And yes, I do read mission reports. Sometimes. I am sure I don’t want to start bleeding from my body cavities and hug trees or some other shit.”

“Clint, that is not the point”, Falcon denied. “Haven’t you guys heard what trash he pukes through that purple sock of his? I don’t care what kind of deal he made with you, Fury. I may be only a token black guy of this team, but I have some pride left. I am not going to work with a fucking racist without a very good explanation. Cap? This guy’s chance of heart, is it true? That week in Germany… Is that when this happened? Did you know about this plan?”

Sam looked so utterly trashed Tony felt bad for the guy, but he had asked interesting questions. That weird bleeding disease hadn’t affected to Tony’s memory, and the image about Steve and Zemo in a tight lip-lock in front of the deceased sea monster raised into his mind. But Steve denied that to be the case. Steve had known about the situation only some ten minutes before the meeting, and even then Fury hadn’t told the leader of the Avengers anything, he had to find out himself.

“Nothing new in this”, Steve was saying. “Just like Operation Paperclip I read about from the Smithsonian website. Some ninety captured Nazi scientist were brought to the USA where they were white-washed to work for Uncle Sam. Fancy weapons and poison gasses. Even Apollo-program. What I have learned in my life this far is that the people in power are practical and realistic. Sometimes even gritty.”

“What are you saying, Cap?” Sam asked. “You think Fury has a right to sneak behind our backs?”

“Of course not, Sam.”

“Cap”, Fury was looking at Steve like a cat who had offered a juicy mouse to his master and had gotten a swat from a rolled newspaper. “I thought I was making you a favor.”

“This will be a good one. Would you like to explain more specifically?”

“Xavier told me about your connection, and you acting like you did for these last few days made me realize it had to be true. This certainly was not my plan A.”

“What connection?” Tony asked. He was ignored by both men.

“You are saying I have to accept the responsibility for a Nazi terrorist walking free. Because you considered my health issues. You can forget this plan if the arrangement is purely for my benefit. If these feelings don’t fade away, I will be satisfied with a prison cell next to him.”

That was some heavy stuff, Tony wondered. A normal guy would have bristled and shouted in anger, but Captain America was showing them his infamous jumping jaw muscle as he bit his teeth together, preventing the crisis to escalate by saying something more.

“Wait a minute”, Tony said again. “What do you mean exactly by that connection? Is there a magic bond between them? I saw them rut each others when they were in the La-La-land, but that was it. That bleeding disease stopped, am I right? Shouldn’t it be over now?”

For some reason, that made Hawkeye blow a gasket.

“They were rutting! Cap and Zemo? What the hell! Fury, that guy is a fucking rapist! I saw that movie, poor virgin Steve didn’t even get a dance with his Peggy!”

“Clint, calm down! That was only a movie. A movie, not real life!” Janet had caught his arm when it seemed Clint was going to climb over the table to get his hands on Zemo. “I am sure Steve is capable of guarding his virtue without your help.”

“Christ”, Steve mumbled. “Yes, thank you, Janet. As I was saying, Fury. If this is only because of me...”

“Sorry to interrupt, Rogers”, Zemo said, raising his hand in a reassuring gesture, which earned him a fresh hop from Cap’s already tense chin. “We are all well aware of your aptitude to make yourself an excellent martyr, but maybe it would be easier to just tell them the rest of it.”

When Fury looked from Zemo to Steve, his pirate visage had gained its calculating gleam again, and Tony was filled with apprehension. He considered saying they didn’t need to know anything more, secrets were kind of sexy, you know, but then again he had this morbid curiosity to find out how things could get any worse, and by doings of somebody else than him for a change. Maybe Tony would even have an opportunity to say the magic words: _I told you so._

“All right”, Fury agreed. “It is your funeral.” The director of SHIELD took a long dramatic breath of air before he continued: “When we picked up Zemo from the police station, it was not that Hydra lost one of its most respected commanders. It was SHIELD losing the highest ranking double agent ever been able to infiltrate to that organization.”

The ruckus which followed Fury’s declaration made Clint’s temper tantrum sound like a whimper of asthmatic mosquito. Tony’s senses had been so much more sensitive lately he had to put his hands over his ears as half of his teammates were shouting in unison.

_What the fuck!_

_But he is a wanted criminal! A murderer!_

_What about those terrorist strikes!_

_He is a goddammit leader of the Masters of Evil!_

_Sydney!_

And so on.

“Are you done”, Fury asked calmly. It had been some ten minutes, and Tony had had a good time to make a few solid questions in his tangled mind. Fuck, how he missed his Hibiki! “Jesus, you don’t have to raise your hand… Yes Tony?”

“I have a question to Baron”, Tony started like a damn reporter. (God, he was a mess!) “If you are a baron any more, didn’t you give away your title? Anyway, you can’t have been in our side long, can you? So which time is that, by the way. From that trip in Germany? Or maybe for a month? A year?”

“Yeah, Tony is talking shop, man! That time we fought the Masters of Evil he broke my nose with the hilt of his blade and almost clipped Janet’s wing off.”

“Clint, don’t be a baby”, Janet admonished her friend. “Fury talked about clone bodies. You are not really Helmut Zemo, aren’t you? I assume he died and SHIELD got mixed in the resurrection process, replaced his mind with their own agent.”

“Are you really able to do something like that?” Steve’s voice had gone hoarse, and his hand jerked like he was starting to cross himself. He made a fist instead, but Tony was not the only one who notices his distress. Now it was Zemo’s turn to jerk and halt a movement before his hand landed on Steve’s shoulder.

“No, Steve”, Janet said, her face edged with compassion. “Normally, no. So you’re really Helmut Zemo?” she continued, turning to address the former Ginger Spice. “Those clone bodies, they have to mean you are not Heinrich Zemo’s great grandchild. I remember reading he had a son who carried the same name.”

Zemo nodded. “I am him.”

“Why the Masters of Evil, then?” Janet wondered. “Is Fury allowing your a side dish? A little bank job here and there, if you try to avoid actual damage?”

Baron Asshat smirked at that. “Not exactly, no. There are actually two things. First there is the practical part. The Avengers have their own training faculties, but compared with the X-men’s Danger Room they are like a ball pool. That is not Mr. Stark’s fault, the SHIELD has no access to Shi’ar technology the X-men use. So Fury and I thought the only way to train your asses in a real combat situation is to create those. Maybe you have noticed how every time the Avengers clash with the Masters there are no actual killers in their mist. Hardcore superpowered criminals, but no actual psychopaths. We couldn’t risk you guys would get hurt.”

That was quite condescending, Tony thought. Or nice, it could be interpret to be thoughtful as well.

“The other, as important reason. There are sometimes tasks which need superpowered individuals, but are too controversial for the Avengers to do.”

“So you hire what ever criminal is needed and then you do SHIELD’s dirty work under the cover of prancing around as a supervillain?”

“Something like that. Yes.”

Falcon had been staring at Ginger with an open-mouthed disbelief. “Shit, you probably sleep good at nights.”

“Sam, he already said he did what he did that we don’t have to do it. I can appreciate the effort.”

Ginger was the first one to react to Steve’s sappy fairness, trying to cover his obvious confusion with a joke. “A seal of approval from Captain America? Now my life is finally complete.”

Clint in turn didn’t want anything to do with that idea.

“Don’t banter with Cap! You have no right! If you are such a happy turn-coat, why didn’t you do something useful before going all the Wikileaks on Hydra? Maybe stick something into Red Skull instead of Steve.”

“Clint”, Janet admonished him, but it sounded more like a reflex than a real thing.

“That is a fair question”, Ginger nodded like it somehow would have been. “Mostly, it was a matter of known evil. As long as there is any part of Hydra left, there will be Hydra High Commander and I preferred him to be a man I could manipulate. A new one wouldn’t have listened to me, more probably he would have seen me as a threat to himself. Johann Schmidt, however. He is quite mad, and easy to distract if one knows his triggers. Why do you think there hasn’t been any flashy Hydra organized terrorist attacks after Sydney Bombing?”

“Alright, if you are such a hot shot plotter, why didn’t you prevent that one?”

“Cause I am not a fucking God!”

Clint actually jumped as Ginger’s foot hit the table and the furniture moved some couple of yards from its place. He seemed to regret his outburst immediately, more so when Fury took his arm and pulled him aside. A short whispered negotiation followed.

“Nicholas”, Janet called when the situation finally seemed to dissolve.

“He tried”, Fury confirmed, looking tired again. “Believe me, Z really tried. It ended very badly.”

“Yeah, tell that to all those dead people.”

It seemed Hawkeye had decided to be not only a clown, but also an ass of the team.

“That was hardly fair, Clint.”

“Oh? Now you are on his side too?” Clint gave Sam an angry stare. “What next, you put on Klan robes and a hood? Have you yet tried to rub that brown smudge away from the backs of your hands? How about some wash-up after the cross-burning?”

“Barton! For fuck’s sake!”

Fury roar made everybody shut up.

“Hawkeye”, Fury continued, now with his dangerously calm tones. “What the hell has been wrong with you lately? Your performance on the field has evenly declined, you fool around in the practices, you don’t read important memos or do your own paperwork. And now racist jokes, of all things! Don’t create a situation where the team had to choose between their friend and a valuable if unwelcome asset. That will be a game where you could most likely be the last one to picked up.”

That was harsh. Even from Fury.

“Fury, it is all right”, Sam tried to explain as Clint stormed out of the meeting room. “That thing about… it wasn’t… it was just a quote from the Blazing Saddles. It’s one of his favorites. You know, the scene where Sheriff Bart and Waco Kid are posing as Klansmen?”

“Blazing what”, Fury wondered.

“Let him go”, Janet said, when Sam was about to hurry after Clint. “His attitude has still been out of line lately. Let him ponder what had been said for a while. And you certainly need to hear this one. About Tony’s original question...”

“Yes. Margaret Carter.”

“Peggy”, Steve gained his voice again. “What about her?”

“It appears my mindplace is not an imaginary world I made for my entertainment as a child. Or it’s that, but also everything else; a storage place, a hideout, the deepest and most private parts of my psyche I am not even myself aware about. I can manage it much better now, it would not be a horror show as it was with Stark and Romanoff on board. So… Fury can give you a bunch of heavily censored dossiers. Or I can show you in here.” Zemo tilted his head, tapped a few times his temple. “Professor Xavier was kind enough to teach me a few tricks.”

 _If you dare_ , was hanging unsaid in the air. Steve’s eyes flashed. For a moment Tony thought he would grab his shield and take a combat stance, just because of the tension in the meeting room. But then his expression melted into his usual hidden, sad smile, as if Steve was silently amused about this strange mess he had gotten himself by sleeping in the ice the rest part of the 20th century.

“What are you waiting for then?” he scoffed at Zemo. “Let’s go to meet her.”


	12. We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finally gets to meet Peggy, his wartime friend. Clint opens his seat belt during the flight and falls off the plane without a parachute. (Not literally though.)

It was like readying himself for the mission. Fury had gotten them a spacious room with a half a dozen hospital beds, maybe because he had used to be prepared for something going wrong. Steve was surrounded by his team waiting for his orders, except this time it was Helmut, who was leading the show.

Thor didn’t trust magic. There was his treacherous brother, Loki, and the way his society stated that magic was consider more suitable for women or old, wise men, who needed all the power they could harness in a world which respected most the young and boisterous warrior males. So Thor didn’t company them, and Tony with his tangled mind and unsteady hands was in no condition for any tasks except being a human beater. (He had promised them apple pie with whipped cream after their mind trip.)

Steve knew how uncomfortable losing himself to Helmut’s mind could be, so he didn’t push his authority when Sam voiced his reluctance. As a fellow empath, there was no way to know how he would react to Helmut’s powers. Maybe they had to try it sometimes, but it would be better to do later, when Helmut was more used to his powers.

Finally, their group included only Steve himself with Janet, Natasha, and Clint. Steve bet Fury wouldn’t be able to give up his control even in the heap of diarrhoea attack, so it was natural he was left to supervise their comatose bodies. The assassin spy would gather any information she was able to get from Helmut and deliver them hand picked to Fury, anyway. There was no actual need for the director to tag along, even if that would have been _educational_ , as Fury himself called their trip.

Here it comes, Steve thought, as Helmut stopped besides his bed. He had raised his hand above Steve’s head, but he seemed to hesitate.

“I was told I don’t need physical contact, but I have found it helps. I would do you first, because you are probably the easiest for me to connect.”

Steve didn’t answer, just grabbed Helmut’s hand and pushed his palm against his forehead. It was that, or cave in to the temptation to kiss the man. He wanted to believe Xavier’s words, that the psychic had seen something in Helmut’s mind which would justify his optimism, but the life had taught Steve its harsh lessons and he refused to succumb to false hopes. He felt himself go unconscious the moment their skin made contact. A moment of unyielding pressure, and then he was standing on a paved road. He looked behind him, and there was the meadow again, the road went straight through it like somebody had drown a line with a ruler, and in front of him rose a tall gate. It seemed to be made of iron, and it got huge, unfriendly looking spikes way over the level of Steve’s eyes. On its left and right the gate continued as brick walls. It was logical, Steve had to admit, Helmut’s mindplace turned abstract concepts into the concrete things, the gate and the walls around his psyche made sense.

He touched one of the spikes. His finger started tingling, and he felt that weird pulling pressure again. He pushed his finger harder against the metal, waiting to see blood, when he was yanked backwards. Steve turned around and saw Helmut who was still keeping a grip of his shirt back.

“Steve, please, don’t do that”, he said, letting him go. “You have met my avatars. Guardian or Percival won’t do anything bad to you, but I don’t feel comfortable if you are walking around in my mind alone. I am a mess, a week was a too short period to sort it all out. Professor Xavier gave me means to do it myself, but it will take time.”

“I wasn’t trying to snoop”, Steve tried to explain. “You made a gate to keep unwanted visitors out, and it will still let me in. Is it because of that shieldmate thing?”

“Probably, yes.”

“OMG, he has given his boyfriend a key already!”

There was Clint and his usual bad jokes. Steve took a double take as he saw a man. Judging from his own old-fashioned clothes and narrower limbs, Steve was his teenaged self, but Clint Barton was an actual kid. He looked like twelve years old punky badass with his black leather jacket, spiked black hair, and guyliner.

“You are an emo in heart”, Janet laughed.

“Look at yourself, old lady, and weep”, Clint retorted, and why not: Janet was wearing a conservative pantsuit, which was far cry from her usual modish creations. Even her face and hair looked as if she had aged twenty years in a blink of an eye.

“Jeez, I have changed into my mother.” Janet was amazed, turning her hands which were now adored by Cartier watch and sophisticated but expensive looking rings. “Well, everybody always say we are two of the kind. But Nat, that is very nice!”

“Thanks, Helmut made this for me during our last visit.”

It seemed that only Nat was composed and self-aware enough to look like as she was in a real world. Or maybe her hair was a tad longer and curlier. Anyway, in Steve’s eyes she looked pretty and homey, and reminded him about Peggy in her house dresses.

“What is the deal with the geriatric duo”, Clint said, pointing his finger at Steve and Helmut. “Steve looks like some paper boy and how about this teen Nazi here? Shouldn’t that uniform be black?”

“Not after the war began”, Helmut answered, letting his voice slide into a German accent. “This is another thing under construction”, he turned to explain to Steve. “It seems I have only choice between field grays and my Hitler Youth uniform, and I have ugly knees.”

Clint’s expression showed he had no idea what Helmut was talking about. Steve tried to imagine Helmut as a Nazi Scout, and failed miserably. It wouldn’t made any difference, anyway, and mentioning about big boy pants didn’t open to the modern people in its true meaning. In his and Helmut’s youth pants were literally for men; boys used shorts or knee pants until adulthood. (And socks. Those goddammit awful knee-high socks which were always down instead of up!)

“All right”, Steve sighed. “You talked about Peggy.”

“This is not my actual mindplace, as you saw previously. Professor Xavier taught me this trick. It is called mindscape; memories viewed though personal interpretation and emotion. Nothing overly objective, but because non of you is a telepath, you unfortunately can’t tell the difference.”

Helmut touched one of the spikes as Steve had done previously. The change of the scenery was as sudden as the first time Steve had experienced Helmut’s mindplace. This time they were not in a castle but in a fine restaurant. Helmut looked much like he was in a real world, but his fair hair was slicked back and he had a dinner suit on, nicely fitting tuxedo with turnover collar dress shirt and a black bow tie. He was sitting at the table near the orchestra, talking with a lady who was wearing long dark blue dress with long, shiny black gloves.

“Is that”, Steve begin. The woman turned her head and he saw it was indeed Peggy Carter, an Englishwoman who had been Steve’s friend and liaison during the years of war. He looked Helmut tilting his head and smiling at her, and his shoulder muscles went taunt. They looked like a young couple in love, and Steve felt how ugly green snake of jealousy made a silent, angry hiss in his mind, when at the same time a sadness formed a painful slump into his throat. Seeing his friend as he had left her just a half a year ago was almost too much and moisture gathered inside his lids as the couple entered the dance floor.

Suddenly they were in the corridor leading to the restrooms. A male figure leaning on the wall with a female taped on his chest… or first that seemed to be happening. He could see sweat making Helmut’s face shiny. Peggy had taken her gloves off and was touching his face in a manner which made his whole body tremble. Those were not good tremors, though, Helmut was hurting or nauseated. And Peggy knew it, and still she didn’t remove her fingers from his skin.

_I noticed you don’t like_ _this_ , she said with a voice which sounded playfully if you didn’t hear the steel under the tone. _That’s all right, I had a friend who also didn’t like wom_ _e_ _n getting too close. I don’t mind that, but_ _I_ _will use it if necessary, do you understand? I_ _f the information you gave us is false,_ _or this is some Hydra scam,_ _I will_ _be touching_ _you in_ _the_ _places which_ _would make your_ _papa blush._ _This is you_ _r_ _only chance._ _D_ _on’t blow it,_ _Zemo,_ _or I will_ _let slip to_ _Tuviah Friedman_ _that_ _you are_ _still_ _alive._

“Who is that Friedman guy?” Janet asked as Peggy was continuing her seductive hand movements which made them look like a couple making out. Helmut’s lips twisted; maybe he was reliving the pain and the humiliation of the situation.

“Friedman was a Holocaust survivor. He was Director of Staff of the Documentation Center in Vienna. An anonymous title, but basically he was a Nazi hunter, not as well-known as Simon Wiesenthal but very effective.”

“So you were a good and proper bitch right from the start”, Clint snorted. “She didn’t need to sic him after your ass?”

Janet squinted her eyes for Clint’s choice of words, but nothing else was said as the scene changed again. This time it looked like a bar. Helmut was older now, way over his fifties. He seemed to be that type who only bettered as a good wine, and in Steve’s eyes he looked even more masculine pretty as a silver fox. (Or maybe Steve had a thing for the older guys because of Carl.) Helmut was standing in the corridor talking on the pay phone. His tone was urgent and his fingers went through his usually well-groomed hair until they looked as if he had fallen asleep his head in the washer-dryer.

_The message wasn’t from me,_ Peggy’s voice was saying on the phone. _We_ _have a leak. The whole department is_ _compromised. It’s a trap. You got to get_ _yourself_ _out of there._

“That was my own stupidity”, Helmut said as the bar changed into the dark alley in some unknown city. “We didn’t meet face-to-face, because it would have been too dangerous. So when I got a message I thought was from Ms. Carter I was confused, didn’t listen to my instincts.”

There were four men. They didn’t look like people nowadays, but nothing like people in the 40s either. Helmut was starting to get old, it had to be sixties or seventies. His attackers looked like trolls with their bushy hairs and tight brown leather jackets. Helmut himself had his classic trench coat and fedora, from which the former seemed to be an excuse to hide as many kind of blades as possible. He still moved nimble as a cat, and two of the men were already dead when one of the attackers found his gun. The shot went through Helmut’s thigh, and the other one hit his chest and he collapsed besides the wall only a few minutes before they saw the help was coming. The alleyway was riddled with bullets and soon the two men left alive by Helmut were lying besides him, dead, or dying. Somebody was still running, though, not from the scene but to towards it.

_Ms. Carter, he is badly hurt_ , one of the SHIELD agents was saying, trying to prevent Peggy to enter the alley, but it was in vain, Peggy pushed the man out of her way and crouched down besides Helmut.

_Helmut, I am so sorry_ , she said trying to hold his hand, then like remembering that incident in the restaurant in France some thirty years ago, she let his fingers go. Helmut was saying something, but it was German and Steve didn’t understand.

“I just said she shouldn’t boggle too much if she got to meet me again.”

“Did she then? Meet you again?”

“The next day there was a massive raid to the known Hydra base by SHIELD. My body was found among the casualties. Ms. Carter was protecting her interests, making Hydra believe the informant was still working among them, but by accident she also gave me a perfect cover. Those Hydra agents, who had seen my face, were all dead and couldn’t tell otherwise. I was consider fallen in a duty, a martyr for a cause.”

“So you were really dead this time? Not only wounded like in the castle?”

Steve still couldn’t believe his ears. Helmut was saying he rose from the death? Like Jesus? Like the son of God, the actual God not bogus ones like Thor or his father, Odin. _Isn’t there anything these people couldn’t do_ , Steve thought desperately. _Isn’t there anything in this new world which is not twisted or compromised?_

“Steve”, Janet called him, but he hardly heard her through the hum in his ears. “Steve, are you all right? Should we interrupt? You are white as a sheet. You got those asthma attacks as younger, are they coming back?”

“No”, Steve hissed. “You know what got me, Helmut. I am alright now. Please, show us more.”

“Steve”, Janet repeated, but the scene was already changing. Steve bit his lip. It was Helmut, but he was a young man again, something between twenty and thirty, and he stood alone in Peggy’s home office. Behind him the door was opening. Peggy came into the view. She had to be near her sixtieth birthday now, or maybe it was the shadows and the lack of make-up. The gun in her hand didn’t wave as she targeted her uninvited guest.

_I am turning around. Please don’t jerk and pull that trigger, Ms. Carter._

Helmut did as he had promised. After seeing his face Peggy let out a whimper, as if in pain, and maybe she was. Steve bet that every dead agent was lying on her conscious, her getting older, this part of her life coming harder to bear year after year.

She lowered her pistol, staring for a while.

_How is this possible? I saw you die. And you look so young. Are you an angel?_

Helmut smiled as he looked at himself laughing at Peggy’s hastily slurred words. Peggy was hugging him, hard, but the gesture was nothing like her invasive and angry touches in that restaurant in France.

_I am sorry. I am hurting you._

_Yes, but I am used to it. Doesn’t matter. Feels good bad, actually. Nice to see you again, Ms. Carter._

_Peggy, all dead men call me Peggy._

_All right, Peggy_ , Helmut said, laughing.

Then Peggy was older again. Maybe some seventy years now, shouldn’t she be retired? It was night-time and they were somewhere which looked like a public library.

_Boys, play nice_ , Peggy was saying as two men continued to stare each other with an obvious distaste.

_Yes, Ms. Carter._

_Helmut, I already told you to call me Peggy. This promising young man is Nicholas Fury, your new SHIELD liaison._

It was indeed Fury, but some thirty years ago. He put his gun away, still eyeballing Helmut in a cautious way.

_Now, now, Nicholas. I promised I will leave you a weapon. You didn’t think an actual gun, did you?_

Steadfast Peggy, who had helped Steve through the hard times General Markham and his cronies made him endure. Who had stood besides him after Bucky died.

“That was all I have about her”, Helmut said with hushed tones, guessing Steve’s state of mind. “I didn’t meet her many times, but she appeared to be one hell of a lady.”

“She was”, Steve admitted. Helmut had frozen the scene when she was looking at their way. Steve raised his hand and made a little wave, and Peggy smiled her smirking, happy smile which always made her eyes shine in that certain way. Even if Steve knew the smile was not for him, it had been for the arguing men in front of her, his heart was full of gratitude. Then she was gone and there was only Helmut and Fury, but not in the library, more like…

They were in the car. It was a van. Helmut was in his Hydra greens, and was that Fury who was lying crumpled on the floor? Fury was wearing black suit and white shirt, but his clothes were wrinkled and dirty, and he had no tie or one of his shoes. There were burns in his skin which seemed like electrocuted. As they looked, Helmut gave him thirty chest compressions, then pushed his mouth against his and continued with two rescue breaths.

It seemed he did that a long time, checking Fury’s pulse and breath as he went. They knew Fury didn’t die, but it was still a tense moment, and even more so when the van’s door was yanked open and they saw Maria Hill. She had time to open her mouth to shout a command, but it changed into cry of pain when Helmut’s blade hit her arm. She dropped her gun, but got kicked in the face, and then she was falling on the ground. Helmut had pulled his mask down again. He was out and running and then the scene changed, more peaceful meeting this time, even if it was a van again. They were talking about Avengers, Steve noticed. Helmut was arguing Fury had no back-up plan. Yes, Steve knew. They were only people, even the god among them could be killed or they could quit, and then what would Fury do without his superpowered strike team?

_I have an idea for you to consider_ , Helmut was saying. _Let’s say I knew some individuals, who are not heroes per se, but they want to be, are thirsty for it. Some for money, some because of revenge, some for redemption. I will contact you when I have them ready. I think we will call them Thunderbolts._

The third van. _Did they never meet in any place nice,_ Steve wondered. Maybe have a pint or coffee?

Fury was standing his back on the van’s door. His voice was full of anger bordering fear, and he was targeting a man in front of him with his gun. They were looking the memories through Helmut’s eyes, but it was not only a straight contact, more like a rolling camera, which now showed Helmut’s face and the cause of Fury’s agitation.

When Peggy had introduced them, Fury and Helmut had been the same age. Not any more they were, and that obviously rubbed Fury’s suspicious nature the wrong way.

_If it_ _is_ _you, you know the code,_ Fury was saying. _Say it, then take carefully one of your blades and wound your face._

_I assure you_ , Fury. _This i_ _s_ _no_ _t a_ _mask. I am not a_ _S_ _krull. Choose the place._

A cheekbone.

_Which one?_

_Right. Just below the eye._

Helmut did as he asked with a blade he had picked from his arm holster. A narrow rivulet of red liqueur rolled over his cheek, and Fury threw a quick stick to him. Though Skrulls could change their shape, in their blood there were foreign elements which could be revealed by a simple test. Helmut tested negative, but Fury was still not satisfied.

_C_ _ode_ , Fury commanded.

_Fury…_

_Code._

_You should know I lose at least week’s worth of memories every time. The last code I remember is TR-159-alpha-49H._

_Close enough,_ Fury said and lowered his weapon. He took steps towards Helmut and end up circling him a few times, still acting like he was suspecting his senses were lying to him.

_Jesus, Peggy told me_ _you may do this_ , he finally huffed. _Last month you were same age as_ _me_ _. Now you are goddammit twenty again. What happened?_

_Let’s say it was one of those kind of family dinners._

_Bullets and knives?_ Fury asked, quirking his brow.

_Inheritor’s powder._

Steve made a face. Arsenic poisoning was a painful and messy way to die.

_One of my relatives tried to get ride of her husband,_ Helmut explained. _I drank a wrong cup of tea._

_You didn’t realize in time?_

_Obviously not. Stephanie’s little ones had stomach flu, and after the seizures started there was nothing anybody could do. But never mind. You didn’t want to see me face-to-face to talk about my family drama._

Steve wanted to hit the back of his own head as a thought came to his mind. Sometimes he was so slow it was shameful.

“When Fury wanted to kill you. He couldn’t give me an explanation that time, not without revealing your secret. You said you gave him your permission. You knew Arnim Zola and Red Skull would have resurrected you?”

“That was the plan”, Helmut admitted. “Now we know it wouldn’t have helped. The bleeding would have started all over again. You gentlemanliness saved us lots of time.”

That was nice thing to say, and Helmut conveniently forgot to mention that Steve’s actions had been a part of the reason Helmut’s cover was now blown. But there was no use to cry over spilt milk as his mother used to say (a saying modern people understood, hurrah!) Steve concentrated on watching. Finally, not a black van, but some remote location near the forest, which had taken a heavy artillery fire. Probably Thor or Iron Man’s repulsor blasts.

A brightly colored figure stepped out of his hiding place near the rocks to converse with the familiar black clothed pirate. It was Helmut wearing the colors of the flag and also an actual flag as his shoulder pads.

“Aaaww”, Clint drawled. “I can hear Cap’s heart fluttering! His favorite thing on one of his favorite people!”

“It was available that time”, Helmut said in no-nonsense tones, ignoring Barton’s baiting. “I used the identity of Citizen V when dealing with Thunderbolts. Let’s say that the original heir of that venerable title wasn’t happy about it when I was found out.”

Thunderbolts consisted of former criminals, who wanted to redeem themselves as heroes. They have no idea their leader was actually Helmut Zemo, a Hydra commander, nor that they have been formed to be a back-up plan for Fury’s favorite child, the Avengers Initiative.

_You were right._ _Your_ _heroes_ _are_ _out of sync_ , the masked figure was stating to Fury. _And I don’t mean Stark being drunk again, though he was. Thunderbolts has less experience but if I haven’t_ _made_ _an excuse and rushed them_ _to_ _leave the scene, it would have been awfully humiliating for your protegees. I think Songbird broke Falcon’s arm when she dropped him out of sky. Sorry about that._

Fury shook his head, looking fraught. Helmut had confirmed the thing he had known all along. _They are in a serious need of a leader who has even the basic concepts of military strategy._

_I heard a rumor which made me think you are working on it._

_Yes, your source is right,_ Fury admitted. _They_ _have_ _finally found him. Captain America. Seventy years in ice. It was like… After seeing you do your resurrection trick I shouldn’t be too surprised. It takes time him to orient, though. I saw from the news you have lost your Hydra green when you play with the Masters of Evil. Not preening for anybody, I hope. A_ _purple_ _sock_ _of all things_ _._

_Lila_ , Helmut corrected. His posture looked stiff, and he seemed to tense more as he noticed Fury’s searching look.

_What is it? You are nervous like a highschooler doing small talk with his prom date's daddy. You want to meet him?_

_I don’t think that is a good idea._

Now the curious gleam turned into the full-scale glare. _Is this going to be a problem?_

_I didn’t refuse because he has killed my relatives. I am not that petty._

_Petty_ , Fury snorted. _For fuck’s sake,_ _Z_ _. You are entitled to be more th_ _a_ _n petty about those kind of things._

_If you say so._

_You are that afraid of him? Is that it, Captain America is your big bad bogey man? Did they tell little Z scary bed-time stories about Cap’s war time achievements?_

If you could say a mask was pouting that was what Helmut was doing. Plus the obvious guilty shuffling of the feet. It still took Fury a moment to realize what was really going on in his associate’s head. _Jesus, you kinky bastard,_ Fury laughed. _That is not going to happen._

Poor Fury. Never say never, Steve thought when the scene changed into the tiny room, which seemed awfully like the standard cell in the SHIELD base.

_The place is secured, we can speak freely. What is happening, Z? This was not the plan. What game are you playing?_

_I am..._

Helmut didn’t know how to continue, Steve realized. Too lost in his mindplace as his newly awakened mutant powers and the defective chastity spell were fighting for dominance, the other one wanting people closer to Helmut, the other shutting all of them out, wrecking havoc in his mind and body in a process.

_If this_ _is_ _you_ _r_ _idea for getting a date with Captain,_ Fury was saying. _All right. You will me_ _e_ _t the man. Now snap out of it. Z?_

_What?_

_I said you will meet Captain._

_Fury, I don’t think…_

_W_ _hat will happen between you and him is your business. My opinion is you are in a road to_ _the_ _massive disappointment._ _I have no idea if Rogers was in a normal state of mind_ _to_ _begin with, maybe there are adjustment problems too, maybe it is the drugs they pumped in him while making him a super soldier, but anyway, the end result is h_ _e is_ _more_ _like_ _a walking and talking pin-up poster boy for the wartime propaganda department than a normal human being. The most funny thing is that our icon of freedom and good_ _old_ _time values is a racist. Yes, Z. A racist in that nice way only a god-fearing white American from the 40s_ _can_ _be. He can hardly hide his distaste_ _when_ _he_ _ha_ _s_ _to talk_ _with me and act according my commands. Didn’t you see that video in where he called an adult black man a boy? For fuck’s sake!_ _My_ _respect for his war time achievements_ _was_ _the only thing preventing me to kick him so hard into his balls… Never mind! But be warned then. There is no reason to assume he isn’t a raving homophobic too, as a_ _C_ _atholic boy scout_ _c_ _ould be. So get his fist into your face sooner better than later,_ _repair_ _that nose_ _of yours,_ _and then hop back_ _in_ _to the wagon. We still_ _have time to_ _frame your daring escape_ _from the SHIELD’s clutches_ _, but not if this will go on much longer._

The scene stilled like a picture on the computer screen. “Steve”, Helmut called. Oh god, he must have sensed Steve’s unease. “It is not like that any more. Fury doesn’t think about you like that, he understands now.”

Steve’s lower lip had gone numb. If he bit it any stronger there would be blood. “Understands what”, he mumbled, afraid to rise his eyes to see the scolding and pitying looks of his teammates. “Does being a homosexual make me less of an ignorant bully even if I act like one?”

“Steve, you slipped one time”, Janet said. “You used a degenerative way of speech which was common in your time. Nobody should expect you to be potty trained to the modern western values overnight. I was there when you apologized to Sam. And that guy you saved said it accurately in his tweet: That if you were so hard-boiled hater some of the Twitter users claimed you to be, surely you wouldn’t have bothered to rescue him and his “little Negros” from the burning and collapsing building by risking your own life. He was the one to get an actual word, and even he thinks a concussion, first degree burns, and social media smear campaign was an unfair result for your selfless act.”

“He and the kids made me cookies”, Steve said quietly.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Clint had been unusually mute during the conversation. Apparently just that he could shout out Bingo later. The man was so overwhelmed he shivered like a hunting dog after a good sniff from the game trail. “That was not a figure of speech, wasn’t it? You are gay? I mean, Captain America is really not straight?”

“I thought that was one clear thing in this mess”, Steve sighed. He had given Fury his permission to share with the team the tale of Captain’s true origins. “Yes, Clint. Two words for you: mission reports.”

Steve knew Sam didn’t trust him completely. When he had tried to explain himself he had probably made things worst. But back then it wasn’t like now when people were all mixed up and could marry or love anybody they wanted. When he and Tony had had their first cafe meeting, Steve, barefooted Brooklyn resident, could just stare at his city like a hick in his first visit in the metropolis. When Steve walked the streets to the library or to the park he had been overwhelmed by the cheer diversity of the people he saw. Back then you didn’t meet many people outside your own group, and all his neighbors or acquaintances were working-class Irish Catholics. Maybe others who were healthy and could move outside their bedrooms and home street met also Polish and Italians and blacks in factories or shipyards or by going to some jazz club in black Harlem, but Steve hadn’t talked to any African American person before he met Fury. The first Jew he actually had anything to do with was Erskine.

He hadn’t not wanted to fight Germans because the Nazis were planning to annihilate Jews and Gypsies and social democrats and Jehovah's Witnesses and homos. He wanted to fight Axis because they were Krauts and Japs and they dared to imagine they would be a more powerful force in the world than the good old USA. He didn’t comprehend what words like Freedom, Liberty, and Democracy really meant before they were in Europe. Before he saw what taking away those things did to the people.

Then there was Doctor Samson and his ideas. The psychiatrist’s opinion was that not only Steve’s superiors but also his peers and even his friend Bucky had said and done to him unnecessary and ignorant things. That was hard to comprehend. Steve was an abom… (except Doctor Samson had made him promise he would try not to use toxic words about himself or others) a homosexual, and had acted accordingly, which had been illegal that time. It wasn’t like he was a hungry kid or some poor woman, abused by her husband. (Besides, Carl had been nice!) Or a factory worker with a salary which wasn’t enough to make ends meet. Those people hadn’t done anything wrong, not like Steve who was in the eyes of the law and the society a lowly criminal. A common tart changed into a science fiction miracle being, still wishing like a little wooden doll that in some day he would turn into a real boy.

A punchline was that he was supposed to be a leader again. You couldn’t deduct that from the way his team crumbled around him. How he himself crumbled until there was nothing left but some funny tweet perhaps?

“Oh yeah! When we are out of here, I am so going to tweet this.”

“Clint”, Janet warned. “Fury’s e-mail stated clearly we will let Steve and the PR-department agree between themselves how they want to deal with things.”

“Yes, shit will hit the fan 200 miles per hour”, Clint said gleefully, not indicating he had heard Janet’s words. “Awww, cap! Don’t look like that! This is so great! This is swell, I can’t wait to see the faces of all those jerks who gave likes to your “slips”. _At last we have a proper hero with proper American values and no more that divergence crap!_ Oh yeah, there will be so much blood pressure raising it will register on the Richter Scale!”

Steve couldn’t believe his ears. What the hell Clint thought he was doing?

“Captain America was created to unite the nation against a common threat.” Clint seemed not to notice Steve’s tone had dropped into his Captain register. That was usually the first and the only warning you got before Cap sprung into action. “You want to use me to divide people more? Make people more angry and mistrustful they already are? And that is not even some magnificent Hydra plan to make our nation weak inside, you would do it for shit and giggles. That’s it, Clint? You will do it because you want more of those little hearts in your social media account? I will fucking castrate myself first! Then my homosexual acts shouldn’t be an issue in any way!”

Steve didn’t have his shield in Helmut’s mindplace, but he had still his hands, and he had no helmet to conceal his angry visage. It must have seemed like he was ready to throttle Barton.

“Christ, Zemo was right about your martyr complex.” Clint tried to joke, but the cold rage in Steve eyes made the rest of the words shiver and die in his mouth. “Look, I didn’t mean I will actually do it”, he tried to explain, “I mean, that is a private matter and it is bad form to out anybody against his or her will. But what the hell, man! You wouldn’t really cut your balls right off, would you?”

“I can’t believe you people”, Steve mumbled, when Clint took a grip of his own family jewels, making sure they were still intact. “Most of the time I honestly don’t know what I am doing here.”

“Cap, you don’t really believe I would do something like that to you?” Clint asked, sounding desperate and kind of hurt. “I was just teasing. You know me, always kidding around. Look, lets go to the…”

Clint halted. He had tried to put his hand on Steve’s arm, but Steve had jerked backwards. Somehow Steve had forgotten he shouldn’t do that when people touched him. But talking about sexual things brought up memories, and lots of those were not good ones.

So no unnecessary touching. Steve was about to explain himself, but Clint was still moving away from him and Helmut had to bark a command to make him stop.

“What do you mean, _don’t move. You will not find_ _the_ _way by yourself._ Was that a symbolic speech? Fury wants you to lead us instead of Cap?”

“Operative leader doesn’t mean…”

“And what would happen if I moved, huh?” Clint asked, starting to find his bearing again. “If I touched this one, over there.”

Clint tapped Fury’s shoulder. It was like touching a tangible and colorful hologram. (Steve had seen some of those ghostly things in Tony’s workshop.) It was Fury but in some weird obvious ways it wasn’t.

“Barton, stop that”, Helmut ordered. “If you act so hostile in here you will summon my guardian.”

“How about Steve? He is much more hostile.” Clint made his case like a little boy, scolded by his parent. “He doesn’t come to the movie nights in the mansion. He hardly even trains with us anymore. Too busy playing with you.” (Tap, tap, tap.) Then Clint forgot his childish game as he noticed he could put his finger’s into Fury’s pocket. (Really, that was odd.) “Hey, is this his phone! Oh god, I could make a prank call to the president and...”

The rest of the sentence ended in a scream as the wraith materialized in front of Clint, stepped unceremoniously through him and they both vanished from sight.

“Helmut, your avatar took Clint!”

Helmut had probably noticed that. And then they had an unpredictable problem.

“I have to go after them, but I can’t sent you away without him. I connected you four in a way that…”

“Never mind”, Steve interrupted, speaking with his Captain voice again. “Go after Clint immediately. Take us with you. No matter, Nat and I have lived our nightmares before. We can help Janet if there will be problems.”

Steve steeled himself. The feeling of being trapped, in the cold darkness, all alone… but this time it didn’t come. There were standing in the dirt road. It was day time, nothing very scary this far, which added to the tension in Steve’s mind. He wouldn’t have been able to explain the feeling, but it was like that funny silence before the most horrendous artillery bombardment.

“What is this”, Steve asked. “This is no concentration camp.”

“This…” Helmut halted, moistening his lips. “The camp or the castle are not the only nasty places in my mind.”

The deer in the headlights was lively compared to Helmut now. He was like a rabbit, waiting to get torn into pieces by a pack of wolves.

“What is this? Helmut?”

While Helmut was staring towards the forest, his face began to change. Steve had seen it two times already, so he wasn’t like Janet, who let out a terrified gasp as Helmut skin pealed away, showing the rotting bone beneath. _This is bad_ , Steve knew.

“Be calm. He is not going to do anything to you”, he said to Janet as she seemed ready to run away. Somehow Natasha had been able imagine her pistols with her linen dress and she was pointing them towards Helmut. Steve was sure it wouldn’t make any difference, but he didn’t want her to piss off Helmut or the Guardian. “Nat, you have seen this. The Guardian has no heart, no feelings. Helmut merges with it when there is a memory of things too painful to endure otherwise.”

Nat gave him a tight smile, but she was already lowering her guns. “I could use that kind of filter myself. What do we do now to get Clint?”

“Yes, Helmut. Where is he?” Steve asked, when nothing happened. Helmut had tilted his head, as if listening to something. Then Steve heard that also. Gunfire. It was near them, but not getting closer, somewhere in the forest.

Steve took a step towards the trees, but Helmut moved to his way. “You were here.”

“I was?”

He remembered the castle. The butchering of Helmut and his parents. Nothing like that, he hoped, but was sure what ever it was they were moving towards, it could be only worse.

“I saw you”, the scary face Helmut explained with his impassive tone. “A blue and red glimpses and then the bunker exploded.”

“Did you die again?”

Helmut let out a dry chuckle which was like two bricks rubbing each others. “Of course not. Come along.”

Bunker explosion. Suddenly Steve knew where they were. He and the rest of the team hurried behind Helmut who was now moving almost unnaturally fast. “This is Normandy.”

“Yes.”

They came to the area which was cleared of trees. There were soldiers with two different kind of uniforms, which was often a bad sign for one of the group. He didn’t have to see the lack of guns, their postures showed the men in Canadian uniforms were the prisoners. The SS-men guarding them were nervous. Maybe the Allies were too close for their taste. Or maybe they were anxious to move forward and were angry to be left behind with the prisoners. Steve had a hollow feeling he knew what was about to happen soon.

“Helmut”, he warned, gripping the wraith’s bony arm. “This is a war crime.”

“This is bee’s knees”, came out a toneless answer. “Haven’t you read from your books what German groups did in the east? Haven’t you seen the pictures?”

Natasha said something in Russian. Maybe a curse. Could have been a prayer.

Steve had seen part of it himself and the rest from the documentaries. War had been hard in Europe and after the Allies took the skies from the Luftwaffe and filled them with their bombers the end result was not pretty in the German cities. But in Russia, the war was still something else. Germans were acting like they were performing a pest control and Russians were cockroaches, not human beings. Mass shootings of civilians. Burning villages. Concentration camps and slave workers to gain cheap labor for German’s war machine. The idea was to empty the land for German settlers. To make German strong. Bigger.

“Don’t do this.” Steve uttered the words though he realized how silly his request was. It still felt bad to hear Helmut say aloud it was already done.

Was this time to grow up, Steve wondered. Clint wasn’t not twelve, but an adult, in the uniform and among the Canadian prisoners. The SS-officer shouted something in German and then he shot three fast shots towards the prisoners. One of them fell down. Some of his comrades had started to run and the SS-men shot after them. Soon the Germans started shooting also those prisoners who had stayed put.

It was a massacre. Soon all of some forty men lie on the ground, dead or dying and the SS-men walked among them doing head shots, making sure their victims were really dead. Steve felt like a coward, but during the shooting he had looked at the Canadians, not wanting to see a familiar figure among the Germans. Most of the soldiers had their helmets on which obscured their faces, but then Steve saw a glimpse of a light, almost white hair and he turned his gaze away.

“Janet, breathe”, he told her, as it seemed she was going to hyperventilate. “Clint will be alright, this was just a manifestation of his worst fears. We are seeing it because Helmut connected us.” Steve wasn’t sure but it was plausible explanation. “Nat, get him out of there.”

Nat rushed forward and grabbed the arm of Clint’s corpse, dragging it unceremoniously behind her.

“Oh my god!” Janet wailed. Her face was as white as Clint’s, looking like she was going to puke or faint. “How can you say that! Half of his head is shot away!”

Her words stopped with a wetly hiccup. Clint’s head was already started to mend as the scene prepared to loop. Time went differently when one looped, Steve knew. He remembered the shots he had heard and tried to guess how many times Clint had been killed during his time in the nightmare.

The Guardian slid out of Helmut. It tilted its head, looking first Helmut and then Steve. Like wondering. It didn’t shrug its shoulders but its pose told him maybe next time it would dare to try the gesture.

“Friend or foe?”

“Oh fuck”, Clint mumbled as the wraith’s rotting face came nearer him.

“Say friend or all that begins anew”, Helmut gave an advice.

“F-friend”, Clint stammered. “Friend! Friend! Oh fuck… it was like… that time when that gang got me cornered, I was out of arrows and their fat leader started shooting at me and… oh god, I shat my pants.”

As an empath Helmut was well tuned with people’s feelings, and if he had a telepathic side dish, as Xavier had hinted, it was easy for the Guardian to choose something one already feared. Or something which reminded one of that fear. Clint had been afraid to be killed by a mob. Steve had felt empty loneliness and Tony had let his own bad habits get the better of him. Natasha… she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and Steve could respect that.

“Better make sure you will not end up like him too, Ms. Van Dyne. Guardian, connect with her.”

“Friend or foe?”

Janet didn’t answer right away. Now that the grim scene had fated away, she was her old practical and clear-headed self again, and full of questions. “He doesn’t look like you. Bone structure is different. This is not modeled after you. Who is he?”

Now was Helmut’s turn not to answer.

“All right. Friend”, Janet said after the brief but heavy silence. (And we will talk about this later, went without saying.) “So your guardian will recognize us the next time and not to attack?”

“That’s the general idea, yes.”

“What the hell are you talking about!” Clint started to sound hysteric. “Let’s get out of here! What, what the fuck was that?”

“A memory. Thanks for sharing. For your safety and comfort, please **remain seated** with your **seat belt fastened** until the pilot turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign.”

The next thing Steve knew, he woke up in his own body. He looked around in the room and observed his team waking. Clint made a drama of it, kissing the floor like the pope in the airport of a foreign land. Helmut was nowhere to be seen.


	13. Don’t Mention the War (I’m Trying to Cheer You Up You Stupid Kraut)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve moves in the Avenger Mansion to avoid Helmut, but Fury has already another plan in motion.

Nick Fury was seesawing on the verge of nervous breakdown. That was nothing new per se after he had joined the SHIELD; during these last decades his secrets might have gained secrets of their own, but the same went without saying with his ulcers also.

He had read the reports of the team’s little excursion in Zemo’s head, which had left him wondering if that had been a good idea in the first place. For some reason Janet had rushed to her parents home, to spend the weekend with her mother, during the time the quick-tempered women fought like two alley cats. (As usual.) Barton had been seen drunk in his local hangout, Steve was moping in his room when he was not maltreating innocent gym equipment, and Romanoff... Actually, nobody had heard about the assassin for three days now. Only Zemo (Fury had difficulties to call him Z again, though aliases like Zachariah McGinnis were begging for a nickname) had made himself useful and pushed himself to be a part of the team analyzing the data they had gained from Hydra files. The rest of the time Zemo avoided all the places Rogers might be so carefully it would have made Romanoff nod her head approvingly to his diligence and acumen.

Overall, a typical day in the SHIELD base. Ulcers, worry, twenty something professionals acting like teenagers rehearsing for the finals in the drama school. Fury almost let out a holler of joy, when he finally got an e-mail from Rogers, which announced the soldier was moving himself to the Avenger Mansion. To be near his team. (Or as far as possible from Zemo, Fury guessed.) There would be a period when the Avengers should decide what they thought about their leader being a little more than a casual acquaintance with a former Hydra Commander, but Fury wouldn’t wait the reports to tell him that. He preferred his info fresh and non-censored, so he asked agent Sanders to go through the recordings of the last few hours of the Mansion’s surveillance system. There were cameras which were known only by Fury and a few trustworthy agents who had installed them. Not that Fury didn’t trust his protegees. (Well… he actually didn’t!) The surveillance was to be sure the persons in his very potential and very expensive Avengers Initiative project hadn’t killed or maimed each others.

“Sir, Stark is sending us a message through the security channel. He regrets he hadn’t had time to update our peepshow cams, as he calls them, but that he will do it when his schedule allows. Sir.”

Of course. _When would_ _those yo-yos leave_ _me_ _a shred of_ _my_ _illusions or dignity_ , Fury thought, throwing some confetti in his pity party.

“And the Captain?”

“He seems to be in the gym, sir.”

Well, of course he was.

Fury tapped his comm. “Z, drop what you are doing and meet me in my office. We have an emergency. It’s Rogers.”

That was nasty, but usually efficient when he was dealing with Tony and it worked like a charm with Zemo too. It took only a few minutes that Zemo was standing in front of his door cam. Fury shook his head. In his mind he knew the man in the corridor was Helmut Zemo, but seeing the freckled and gangly redhead in his place made him want to rub his eye or shake the computer panel until the vision changed.

“Agent Sanders”, Fury asked when Zemo was inside. “Show him the gym.”

Rogers was powerlifting, making deep squats with a barbell and pushing himself out of them, again and again.

“This can’t go on much further”, Fury said. “He will soon hurt himself with those insane weights. One of you have to man up, and I’ve decided it to be you. Go there and woo him.”

Zemo’s face reminded so carefully blank that Fury started to get nervous. “For Christ sake! Do I have to spell it out? Go to him and show him some nicer sore spots than his knees and knuckles.”

Sanders made a strangled sound. Zemo was now looking at him like Fury was a fussy old auntie who tried to organize a date for her unpopular nephew.

“Fury, the reward on my head is forty million now, and still increasing. It will be no time when some of your agents will deduce my identity and decide to collect. There have been made several searches about private jets and downtown apartments of that prize scale inside SHIELD system.”

The former Hydra commander cast a meaningful glance towards agent Sanders.

“Sir, it was nothing”, Sanders hurried to explain. “My son got this idea how cool it would be not to commute. Sir.”

“Indeed”, Zemo huffed. “As you see, Fury, there will be no happy ending. It is only a matter of time.”

“Yes, and I am talking about that time… what if it’s longer than you think? Are you so fixed on dying you are scared to live? Have you even asked Rogers? What if he wants to ride to the sunset with you his guns blazing? Or live as a beach bum in some tropical island the rest of your lives? Shouldn’t it be his choice?”

“You would let him go?” Zemo mask cracked to show a genuine surprise.

“He is not a prisoner here. Of course I wouldn’t like it, or recommend it, but you have already seen what going against that man means. If Rogers decides something is against his apprehension of right and wrong, it is hopeless to try to change his mind.”

“You are talking as if being an Avenger is just another tour for him. Another misery he has to suffer through.”

“Maybe. Go and ask him, at least.”

Zemo shook his head. “That is no good. The rest of his life on a run. Now that the bond is completed, he doesn’t need to be near me anymore. He is as free from me as he was in the beginning.”

“Really?” Fury didn’t know what to make about that information.

“We didn’t have more sex”, Zemo explained, guessing his thoughts. “That part is over. It’s more like a spiritual thing this forward. After the initial period, those not so gayish men in my family settled into the companionable brotherhood. Some of the most powerfully bonded were not lovers but the best friends. I have never had friends, I wouldn’t know how to make that happen. But Rogers have had. He has lots of stories of James Buchanan Barnes, or Bucky, as he called him.”

“Agent Sanders”, Fury said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Would you leave us alone for a minute, please.”

Sanders removed the headset and took her tabled. Fury was up from his chair and his fists around Zemo’s shirt collar at the same time the door closed behind her. “You piece of shit”, he hissed, his face a few inches away from Zemo’s. “Are you trying to threaten me?”

“That was not my intention.” Not a pissing contests then, Fury realized, letting him go. Zemo averted his eyes as he continued. “My only intent was to emphasize our difference. You don’t have to worry about Rogers. After I die, nothing dramatic will happen. My death will not incapacitate him, or drive him mad. He grieves as he normally would, as much as he usually does. Remember, he is a soldier. He is used to bounce back quickly after losing comrades in arms.”

 _Bullshit_.

Maybe Fury was a wobbling toddler in the feelings department, but Helmut Zemo was still waiting to stand up and take his first steps.

  
  


*

  
  


Worthless and stupid. Like that Steve would have described himself if somebody had bothered to ask. Helmut certainly didn’t, he had already one of his shadow games going on. If Steve saw him at all, the man was whispering with Fury in the dark corners of the SHIELD base. (Sometimes literally. The base had no good lighting plan.)

Not that Steve was interested what Helmut did, when it was so much more intriguing to find out what the man had already done. Steve read the news he had missed during Helmut’s absence. His withdrawal symptoms had prevented him to think anything else than a certain German double spy, but now he studied articles about arrested politicians and Hydra’s connections with the former well-reputable companies.

One war had ended, maybe the last one they could say was for a good cause. The other wars had started after that, and not all of them were fought with bullets and guns. Steve was not naive, there had been propaganda during his time in the army, but it had been so much clumsier, so easy to deduce as false or exaggeration. Now Steve had real difficulties to separate the truth from the rumors and falsehoods.

Everybody seemed to have his or her own agenda. Maybe time to feel themselves as a nation was truly over, or maybe it hadn’t been there even in the beginning, because what was there to unite them? A flag and a song, and maybe some common history, the myths about the Wild West, but even those meant nothing much for these new generations. Or if those events were talked about, it was never a tale of adventure and bravery any more, but an ugly history of conquest and killing. Steve, like his contemporaries, hadn’t thought about their land in that way, but it had been already proved they had been ignorant about many other things also; the suffering and oppression of the Native Americans was not a great exception.

Steve had read so much, and so much was still unread. He had been poor and seen the conditions in the factories, gained the payment which wasn’t fair, wasn’t enough for even meager living. For people like him rumors about the workers paradise had sounded intriguing, the theories of those German philosophers had made sense. But as it turned to be, the theory and the practice were two different things and the great experiment in Russia had failed and ended. It had never been real anyway, just another way to bully and oppress the little guy. But if it had been real...

 _Captain America – A Communist!_ That was a headline which would really shake the nation out of its social media stupor.

The thought had some potential. If Steve couldn’t be a symbol of hope to unite his country, he still could be a spittoon everyone would love to hate, no matter the gender, orientation, race, religion or social class. United by the common enemy, as it had been in the wartime. In this situation telling the people Captain was gay was the worst thing imaginable, the gesture which would lead only to the social media war, and there would be no winners, only losers. There wasn’t dire need to come out of the closet, as they said nowadays. He couldn’t see himself sitting with Helmut hand in hand in the coffee shop. Too many decades and dead people separated them, and if he was really honest with himself, it was obvious Helmut didn’t want him. Not Steve Rogers, a poor, sickly tart from Brooklyn. Baron wanted his Captain, and only because of his power. Not exactly a match made in Heaven, wasn’t it? (Not to mention Red Skull would be a nightmare as a father-in-law.) Despise of the harsh reality of her life, Sarah Rogers had been a romantic in her heart, so how could her son settle for anything less than a true match? He didn’t look at Helmut and see the rest of his life in front of his eyes. (It was mostly because Steve still didn’t believe he could actually think about some other man that way, after considering himself so long as a deviant and a criminal. His brave plan to move to France had helped his self-esteem a little, but obviously not enough. Sour, said the fox about the grapes. In some very deep and secret corner in his heart he was already pining, thinking Helmut had been incredible, dizzying brave by living his live as he had done.)

The anxious, nasty feeling hadn’t come back, though Steve didn’t see Helmut or talk with him. Professor Xavier had mentioned something about the connection balancing itself. Maybe that had happened. Their bond didn’t feel diminished, but it wasn’t the former exigent pressure either. It just… was. Did it mean their connection was getting stronger, Steve wondered. And they haven’t even had sex. Sex overall would have been nice, but the things against the idea were the same as before. Fury had advised to keep it down before he came out, and as Steve had deduced, making his orientation public was not an option in this political and social situation. Maybe later date, when the mess with Hydra files had been sorted out and people started to trust their government and fellowmen again.

Steve needed a change, though. At least a change of scenery, so he had asked Tony if he was still welcomed to the Mansion.

Of course he was. As he stood with his moving box in his arms in front of his new room, he could only stare in awe. Castle Zemo had been aristocratic and grand, but it had centuries of history and hording owners behind its splendor. Zemo hadn’t made it for Steve’s benefit, not like Tony who had arranged this place thinking about him. How did Steve know that? Well, there were items he remembered mentioning in his stories, like their next door neighbor, the artist who had given Steve his old easel and canvases before leaving to the front. On the table there were fine looking oil paints and brushes he or his mother couldn’t have afforded for him. The comfy chair Tony had insisted him to try in the store. Curtains and carpets and a bedspread Steve had thought Natasha was considering for herself (they had seemed fine to him though rather masculine in their earthly colors, but what did he knew about women’s tastes nowadays, or overall.)

Tony opened the closet door, saying something about how Steve didn’t have enough clothes in his disposal. Now he had, and now he understood those excruciating tours in Mall with Natasha. Rails and shelves possessed almost all the items he had tried on in the shops. It was too much. And the room. It was huge enough to host a family of five. Steve’s moving box with his spare underwear, better jeans, a few T-shirts and two set of SHIELD sweats was really pitiful in comparison and reminded him how poor and alone he really was in this new world. But there was no way he would utter his feelings aloud and upset Tony who was waiting besides him that hopeful but timid set in his eyes. How could he had ever thought Tony was like those leeching rich men who had drugged and rap... _used_ him during the time he was their dancing monkey in the entertainment tour. That had been a vile thought, and Steve was now ashamed of his prejudice.

“This is amazing. Thanks Tony. Thank you so much.”

“So you like it?” Tony was on him like an eager puppy. “We were so nervous… or I was, please don’t tell Nat I insinuated her might have such a pedestrian feelings… but that was because I didn’t know if you had preferred the walls with three different kind of molts and some water leaks from the ceiling… a joke, joke! Even if one time, when I was six, and I experiment with rocket motor and the ceiling was actually too low… Anyway! It was about the colors, but we thought blue, red, and white would be too much, and this is not your workplace anyway… not that you shouldn’t think patriotic thoughts in your free time, I bet you do even now while we are talking, eh? We didn’t buy you any printed books, but here is a tablet for you and you can buy and start reading any book you want in a few seconds, you know… maybe you have already done that? I always knew you are not so technophobe you pretended to be. Well, is there anything… I mean, if we forgot something, you just say it, to me or Jarvis… Oh, maybe we should go to meet him right away. Officially, because you are not a guest but moving in, Jarvis acts differently between the family members, you know. He is probably in the kitchen preparing dinner.”

Tony grabbed his arm and Steve felt himself go stiff. He didn’t mean to, and he relaxed his muscles right away, but Tony had already let go off him and profoundly apologizing.

That was the worst part about the others knowing his personal history. His team treating him like he was a porcelain doll. Steve couldn’t stand it, so he took a step towards still backing Tony and put his arms around the man in a bone crushing hug.

“Yes, yes”, Tony said, when Steve let his lungs have some air again. “I didn’t mean it like that… and even if I would mean… yes, I know when I am outmatched. Just a billionaire genius philanthropist superhero here… He though… He is kind of your age and very manly and sexy in his horror Nazi uniform. A nerd can’t never beat those military types. Ginger Spice has a room opposite you when he wants it ready.”

Tony had said it as a joke, but Steve could sense the truth behind his word. Tony honestly believed that in a fair fight for somebody’s affection he would always end up in second place. It was sad to see what his friend Howard had done to his son’s self-esteem, and for what, idolizing needlessly a pin-up propaganda guy, who was never a real person. Tony was such a swell guy, brilliant, generous, and rich like Croesus, and now when he wasn’t drinking and didn’t act like a total dick, he would make a good husband for some lucky gal or guy. (It still boggled Steve to think like this, but he tried to practice gay-thoughts every time he was able.)

Steve could do something about this. To boost Tony a little. Oh well. He didn’t even need to lie.

“Tony, one of the reason I couldn’t think myself at the breakfast table with you guys… that was you. I couldn’t handle you in boxers and a beater.”

“You c-couldn’t...”

“Not without a boner. You look awful nice when your eyes are sleepy and your hair all over the place.”

Tony almost dropped the box of toiletries he was holding. He was not especially fair skinned, not like Steve or Helmut, but by god the guy could blush. His whole head was like in fire.

“Jesus, Steve. And we thought you are a prude”, Tony mumbled, his voice full of embarrassment and delight. It was so cute sight Steve had to hug him again.

“Sorry I counted you among those leeches I met during my puppet show. Tony, you are a swell guy. You’re welcomed to look at my ass any time you like.”

“Jesus”, Tony repeated, his nose buried in the place in which Steve’s neck connected with his shoulder. “I swear… only looking, not trying to grab… I didn’t mean...”

“I knew you didn’t, Tony.”

“It just… when I am drunk, I do the most stupid things. I know it is not an excuse...”

“No it isn’t”, Steve admitted. “But you apologized and you are trying to stay sober, that’s more than enough for me. I am not your papa, you know.”

“Thank God! He was one mean son of a b… Jesus, I didn’t… I mean, he was your close friend...”

Tony was suddenly taunt and backing from Steve again.

“It’s all right”, Steve placated him, not letting go of his arm. “I know about you and Howard. Janet told me some things. He was my friend, but the legacy he left behind… I am ashamed of him.”

“You are?”

“Yes, Tony. He had no right to put his family, put his son in second or third place, and run around the world chasing after an impossible dream. Your dad was so funny and witty, and he invented magnificent, impossible things, and maybe I was a little besotted by his worldly charms, but I too got to witness his cold and calculating side, which made him think he was better and more important person than anybody else. And when he was drunk, he could be really mean. Even violent. I didn’t have to live with him, so it was not a hardship. But I have been thinking after Janet told me about his search missions. Maybe it wasn’t actually me he was looking for, maybe it was this.”

Steve hadn’t put down his messenger bag with the shield, but his gesture towards his back made his meaning perfectly clear.

“He told me over and over again my shield was made from the rarest metal on Earth. It was important to him, one of his favorite projects, much like Captain America.”

“Vibranium”, Tony mused. “Yes, yes, you are right, I didn’t consider that. I thought he was after your frozen sperm.”

Tony’s skin turned, if possible, more red and he covered his mouth with his hand in a vain attempt to take back the words which seemed to run from his lips with the same coherence as a pecking hen crossing the yard. “I mean… m-maybe you have noticed I am an egocentric person, I thought it was because of me... Howard never visited campus but that time he came and caught me snogging with a guy, it was lots of talk about useless faggots after that, and I thought, well, he had told me time and time again he wanted a proper son, a son like you he meant, or maybe the one you could produce.”

“Oh Tony.”

A hug again. They seemed to do that awfully lot today. No wonder Tony’s quota was filled. He was not a person to stay still for long, and Steve let go as Tony was only from seconds to start vibrating.

“Alright… a-alright, Steve… Maybe I better… I want to look that Jarvis has bought enough broccoli… that is still your favorite, right?”

“Yes, Tony.”

Tony almost run out of door. Steve was still standing in the middle of the floor, and he turned around a few times, admiring his new place. The room Carl had rented for him had been clean and warm, but this one was all that and so much more. It had its own bath, as Steve noticed, opening the door next to his walk-in closet. He had showered only an hour ago, after he used the Mansion’s well-equipped gym, but that shiny room of glass and marble and dark tiles made him want to shower again. Maybe to take a bath also. There was a company of bottles, and Steve spent the next ten minutes to sniff bath salts, soaps, and hair products. He had missed his old stinky soap, because it was the smell of his time and home, but this home certainly smelled better.

“Jesus”, Steve mumbled, and maybe it was meant to be a thank-you. To the upstairs also. He left the bath and took his piteous little box, arranging his modest collection of clothes into the closet. From the rack there were hanging suits, which were no worse looking than the ones Tony himself wore in his socialite life. He laughed aloud, when a silly thought came into his mind; it would not be a hardship to be Tony Stark’s kept man.

A firm knock at the door erased his musings. He thought it would be Tony who had forgotten to introduce him to some gizmo the billionaire inventor had made for him. Or maybe Tony had come to escort him to the dining hall. Steve had felt his stomach rumble a few minutes ago. But at his door it was not the head of the house. It was Helmut.

Suddenly Steve was not hungry anymore.

“We need to talk”, Helmut said.

“Do we?”

“Fury thought so.”

“All right. If the great leader says so… come in.”

Helmut had stood beside the door as a gentleman spy he was, waiting an actual invitation. His expression was carefully blank as he studied the room somebody else had done to his shieldmate. Only a brief creasing of his nose told Steve he was annoyed, and maybe not completely because of the sensible reason he was going to invent and tell him in any minute now. Could it be that Herr Baron was a tiny bit jealous, thought Steve, an expert and a prime example of that particular emotion.

“This would be very nice if this whole place wouldn’t be such a death trap. Fury asked me to check the security after I told him how many times Hydra has planned attacking the Mansion.”

“What is your cover again?”

“IT-security specialist. Fury hired me through the SHIELD-worthy firm in which I have been working the last six years. Imagine that.”

“Yes, like magic”, Steve said sarcastically, thinking it was again Strange’s doings.

It had been Xavier this time. Professor X didn’t like the unethicality of the situation, which planting false memories inside people heads certainly was, but he didn’t see a choice. Helmut had now an ex-wife, one of his colleagues in the firm, who had kicked him out for being gay, of all things. His other co-workers were pissed off about the divorce, because they actually paid the couple’s costly honeymoon in Hawaii. They could swear their hands on Bible Helmut was that odd introvert and socially awkward guy they had to endure because of his nerdy brilliance kept the firm floating.

Such a drama! Maybe Xavier was a friend of daytime television. (Steve had started to like it. Especially the talk shows. There were lots of Disney animations, but even those didn’t last forever.)

Helmut raised one of his pale eyebrows. “Maybe we could sit down?”

Needlessly to say, they had been standing. Steve was too used to the modern people, who came, talked and sat down as they pleased. He gestured again, and Helmut sat himself in the comfy chair, leaving Steve the chair beside his worktable or the bed. The bed felt too intimate, and the table was full of things he could play with while they conversed. He was sure it would not be an easy talk.

“I am not going to apologize”, Helmut begin. “That would be hypocrisy.”

Steve nodded. It would certainly be.

“The dead don’t need to hear how sorry I am. They just wanted to live.”

There had been the forest and the Canadian soldiers and the teenaged SS-man who had raised his rifle towards the prisoners and shoot them with his fellow soldiers. Steve was not naive. Probably there was more and also more recent things which were not sugar and spice and everything nice. Fury had showed him spying was a ruthless game. In the war ugly things were easier to cover. Steve had been in the side of angels and still he had done horrible deeds. (For example, how could their little group take prisoners and then drag them home with them when they were supposed to move fast and stealthy? Every soldier knew that trying to surrender to a strike team meant a certain and quick death if the group was not ordered to snatch a prisoner for interrogation.)

“I know what you would have liked me to do. You would have protested. Or at least shot the trees. But even you are not perfect and I don’t have ounce of your moral compass. I am everything you said and then some.”

What had Steve said? Oh yes. _Fanatic_ _murdering_ _shithead Nazi scum._

“Why then?”

“What why?” Helmut wondered.

“You have died how many, two or three times while helping the SHIELD and you have done that without asking monetary compensation or asylum. If you have no moral compass, why to bother when there is nothing to gain?”

“I don’t _help SHIELD_. I don’t like SHIELD. They are lucky I like idiocy even less.”

That was new. “You think Hydra is idiocy?”

It seemed that only his good upbringing prevented Helmut to spit on Steve’s new and fancy looking carpet. “Hydra. Nazism. Just quick gains and no long term plan. Opportunistic, eloquent speaker incites scary and snotty middle class people against some minority group, a good old recipe to power, works also nowadays like a charm, but when that minority group happens to contain some of the most brilliant and talented minds of the nation, you are just shooting your own foot. German could have made an atomic bomb, but all the knowledge fled from Europe and straight to your Manhattan Project.”

Nazis and the atomic bomb. Even a thought made Steve tremble. He hadn’t witnessed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he was under the ice already, but as one can guess, he had seen documentaries.

He had slept under the ice like some damn princess in her glass coffin. Helmut had lived and died during that seventy years.

“Do you still remember when there was only newspapers, books and the radio? Maybe some black and white movies, if you were able to leave home.”

If Helmut was wondering about his question he didn’t show it.

“Now there are those things and lots of more, and those all are inside this little device”, Steve continued, touching his smartphone. Starkphone. What ever.

“Everyone by themselves, staring at his or her favorite things on this tiny screen. I remember how we used to gather to listen to the radio. There were music programs, and dramas, and my mother’s favorite priest had his own show, which I later understood was full of his anti-Semitic ramblings. A funny thing, nobody in our god-fearing neighborhood thought nothing about it, except that he was a good man because he stood up against KKK. Whose members hated Catholics with a passion.”

“Steve, please. Don’t do that. It is not the same thing.”

Maybe it wasn’t. Nazi-Germany had a system behind it, the whole society giving it support and making it official. For Steve, the most horrific thing to comprehend had been there wasn’t even real fear or hate behind the situation, maybe in the rhetoric speeches but not really. (Who would fear little children or housewives or some retired school teachers anyway?) The system made killing so nonchalant and factory-like it was easy to forget its existence. It was not a cold-blooded murder of civilians and POWs, just removal of the unwanted elements from the society which deemed itself perfect. The words had such a power, they covered and deceived. If Steve had returned home from the war he would have seen signs of the same haughty superiority in its diluted form. It had not been supported by the government, but still deemed as the way of the world.

Suddenly Steve was craving a cigarette. Now if ever was a time to pull a long, calming drag. “You’re awfully picky today… very well. Jarvis will be calling us to dinner soon. Are you hungry?”

Helmut acted as he was surprised by the question. “I am alright. I got a sandwich before I left the SHIELD base.”

They had not talked about everything. Not even scratched the surface. But it was a beginning, and after the thoughts it wakened, neither of them wanted to go to the dining hall with the others. They were so young and had lived their lives in more peaceful times, in a society where everybody had the same rights and the same duties (in theory, at least). They wouldn’t understand.

“I have protein bars. Could you wait until the others have eaten? We could spar a little in the meantime.”

Helmut understood his meaning. Still he hesitated. “Fury especially asked me to drag you away from the gym.”

“I didn’t mean gym, but a real sparring. A mock fight if you like.”

Helmut had to laugh at that. “If you want to buffet somebody, why don’t you try Thor? Or Tony in his armor? You know very well that without a gun or my blades I’m as dangerous as a wet dish cloth.”

“We will change that”, Steve promised. “But this evening… Who said anything that you have to go without your sharp thingies?”

How fast could pupils grow, Steve wondered, looking at the man in front of him. It was not a secret Helmut liked his blades, and he liked to use them on Steve. Steve shuttered as if somebody had touched his back with cold fingers. At the same time heat rushed into his armpits, chest, and groin. A bit crazy, both of them.

“I send a message to Jarvis. Hopefully, he doesn’t get mad and leaves some scraps for us.”


	14. A Dilemma of America’s Ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finds out that having no alcohol or drugs to excuse his behavior can be exhausting.

Helmut was looking at the collection of the blades he had found. The armory of the mansion, if one could call it that, consisted mostly of the techno toys, made by the master of the house himself. If there was a sword or a knife or a throwing star, they have been taken from some adversary or the other, so in theory they were crap, anyway: who would lose a fight fielding proper tools? (A loser, obviously.)

No balance, Helmut noticed, as the stars bounced off from Captain’s shield, one of them almost nicking his shoulder. Oh well. It was only a paper cut, but too close Steve’s artery for Helmut’s peace of mind.

“A question”, Helmut said, because he needed time to thing his movements in a new way. Killing or maiming would be easy but with these unknown, crappy weapons fighting without hurting Steve was a challenge worth of a professional. “Close combat training was not very advanced in the 40s, not even in a special branches of the army. A rifle was a soldier’s main weapon… I first thought Fury has put you through those moves, but they don’t seem something learned from Romanoff.”

“I bested her once with my vintage style”, Steve admitted. “She has taught me a lot after that, but originally Peggy got me teachers. Some men she knew had traveled in Asia and studied martial arts with the local masters. It was exotic and very hush-hush thing that time.”

“Yes, I can imagine. Just like this sword… Do you remember its name?”

“ _Katana_. A blade of amateurs you called it. Want to show me what you can really do with it?”

That was a tricky question. The blade was dulled by bad maintenance (how hard is would be to wipe out the blood time to time, huh?) but it could still slice a good portion off from Steve’s body if Helmut wasn’t careful.

While he pondered, Steve was still studying him in his Captain mode. “Your fighting style is based on the fact you don’t touch anybody or be touched. It is your strenght. But I bet it is also a weakness.”

“Is that so.”

Helmut made a sassy smile bread slowly over his lips. Steve stiffened as a hunting dog, smelling a game trail.

“Yes”, he said, dropping his gaze somewhere under Helmut’s nose and letting it then slip down, down, down the road with a smile of his own. “We will put Natasha work on you.”

“We do?”

“Yes.”

“Lazy boy. Don’t make others do things you can do yourself. I am sure that your close contact skills would serve us both wonderfully.”

And then, when Steve was still thinking other things and suitable distracted, Helmut attacked.

*

In sub-basement level two, two stores below the basement which contained training faculties and the gym, Tony Stark was tinkering in his workshop. Mostly he was designing a new AI for his suit because his restless hands couldn’t do anything concrete like trying to solder tiny biny bits and pieces of his faceplate. Maybe he should be doing the security checks Mr. McGinnis had been yapping to him about instead, but duh! He run a tight ship here and a thought he could have made some mistakes, leave some weak code behind, when he was drinking and programming, was laughable. Everybody knew he had made his best works while intoxicated. What he meant… he was writing code right now and without the booze to dull his busy brains he had to watch two different TV-channels and calculate pi’s decimals that he was able to concentrate on his work.

What Tony was also watching, sometimes, was the peepcam of the training room. That because Steve was there with Mr. McGinnis and there were also all kinds of dangerous things which could simulate humanoid or mechanical attacks. They were not using those, though, but going organic, and it seemed the great Captain America wasn’t doing so well all the time. Maybe it was because he was cautious to hurt his sweetheart (yes, they were sweethearts, no question about that!) but probably not. Tony was starting to realize Mr. McGinnis had been going easy on them in his roles as Citizen V or Baron Zemo, and that made him wonder how scrappy teamwork they had been performing before Steve came aboard. They had a damn god with them, hadn’t they! And a flying robot knight. With plasma guns! And there was this guy dancing around their leader, the super-soldier, carrying an over-sized toothpick against his adversary’s over-sized salad plate.

“Whoa!” Tony shouted and rushed up, because suddenly their fearless leader was down and bleeding like a stabbed pig. Or not really. Mr. McGinnis was already there to push a first aid gauze all over the wound in his thigh and then there was Steve’s own overeager healing factor to consider. However, the incident was so severe they didn’t continued their practice but removed themselves to the medical facility. Tony twitched the cams wondering should he rush to the elevator and meet them there, but before he had decided to do that, Mr. McGinnis had already cleaned up the wound. Unlike Tony, whose help would have contained keeping Steve’s hand and hovering anxiously beside him, Mr. McGinnis seemed to be adapt enough in the field medicine. He pulled the skin up and sutured it tightly and fast and without local anesthesia, if Steve’s hopping jaw muscle was any indicator in that matter.

 _Damned macho men_ , Tony thought, more amused than angry. Steve seemed to be all right and that was the point. Tony was about to close the cam and get back to work when his computer announced an incoming call.

“Yes, what is it Janet.”

“We are now ready to leave. You were there when we agreed to go to the movies. Are you coming with us?”

Yes, Tony had been agreeable. Probably. He couldn’t remember the reason why that was. There was this new idea for his suit, and he would have liked trying to simulate it right away, and there was Steve, who was wounded, who knows, maybe he was able to get a lockjaw or HI-virus from that icky sword, you never knew where those things had been.

“Tony, we all agreed the idea was to give the guys some privacy. They have things to discuss. If you are not coming, don’t wander around the mansion and bother them.”

 _Alright_ , Tony thought, his eyes still plastered on the computer screen where Steve and Mr. McGinnis were now smooching like there were no tomorrow. Was Steve that type who got all hot and bothered about the pain? That couldn’t be right, he wouldn’t be able to do his duty in the battlefield if he was in a state of permanent hard on after every scrap and bruise…

Tony put his right hand on his right cheek and pushed his head to the left. When his eyes were not on the screen, he was able to shut down the cam and leave Steve some privacy. He mumbled something affirmative to Janet, and promised to stay in his shop, the guys wouldn’t even know he was alive. Which was quite right, he realized. He felt a bit bad, but his thoughts about the hot threesome with the warrior twins appeared to be too embarrassing without alcohol or drugs to lower his inhibitions.

He got some work done, but after a few hours of intense concentration, his headache was trying to kill him. It couldn’t be the low blood sugar, that he was used to. It was the coffee or rather the lack of it. Jarvis constantly removed everything reminding coffee makers from his shop because with them in the same place as Tony, could happen that he forgot to eat and drink anything else for days.

Tony made his slow way through the library. Jarvis was the only one to have his quarters in the main floor, and Tony hoped the elevator hadn’t woken him up. But everything was quiet and dark. Tony’s felt how the sweat started making his armpits sticky. It was like he was a kid again and trying to get to his rooms without waking Howard who had fallen asleep on that fine but uncomfortable sofa in the lounge room. This part of the mansion was the one he hated most; Howard had wanted to strike his visitors with awe and envy, and the architects hadn’t been shy to draw all the Greek pillars and pompous staircases and overly huge and inefficient marble fireplaces Howard had been able to pay.

The mansion was like a damn tomb, and if Tony had wanted his teammates in here to give the place some life and personality, nobody could blame him for that wish.

“I see Dracula has risen from the grave.”

He hadn’t waken up Jarvis, because the man was wide awake, sitting beside the kitchen table and writing with his laptop. What Tony meant… wait a minute!

“What the hell happened here?”

“I think Captain and Mr. McGinnis were hungry after their training exercise. They missed the dinner.” _As_ _you_ _did_ , was left unsaid, but both of them added it to the sentence anyway.

“The side table...”

“Yes, we are now all well informed that the cabinet should have been attached into the wall in a different way to withstand the weight of two grown men moving over it.”

The rooms were soundproofed, but the old man had rabbit’s ears, and collapsing of the cabinet and all the things inside and top of it must have been making quite a ruckus.

“Captain was profoundly apologizing and willing to clean up”, Jarvis continued, interpreting Tony’s blank stare as a reproach towards the national icon. (Who had ridden his boyfriend in Tony’s kitchen, for heaven’s sake!) “I declined, though, because they had more urgent matters to take care of… I presume you are not asking monetary compensation for the damages?”

Tony shook his head, still too dumbfounded to answer. _More urgent matters…_ That man had given him the talk about flowers and bees when Tony was a teenager, but it was still as embarrassing as before to hear Jarvis saying things like that.

“Good. I used the house account anyway. The carpenter would be here tomorrow 1 PM. And the new kitchen equipment, including a coffee maker, should be delivered in the morning. I am afraid replacing your grandmother’s china will be a more difficult task. They were quite old and rare of stock, it may took a couple of week to find a new set.”

“They were ugly pieces of crap. I hated them. Please, buy something not flowery instead.”

“Very well, master Anthony. May I suggest Athéna Navy by Bernardaud? Classic white with a narrow blue geometric motif around the edge... Do you need any help with that sandwich?”

“I can do my own sandwich, for heaven’s sake. Anything without gold and those tacky roses will be good. You could use paper plates all I care, if it would not be horrible waste of resources.”

Then, as if to prove his sandwich-making skills wrong, the mayonnaise jar slipped from Tony’s shaking fingers and broke onto the floor.

“Fuck!”

“Beware of the glass, master Anthony”, Jarvis warned, starting to rise from his chair. “Don’t move, I will bring the rag.”

“Please, Jarvis. Please, sit down.” The desperation in Tony’s voice made the old man halt his movement. Just thinking about Jarvis, crawling at his feet, pumped Tony full of shame and anguish.

“Very well, master Anthony. If you are sure...”

“I am. Thank you, Jarvis.”

Tony took a bunch of kitchen towels and started to clean up the mess. Jarvis was still doing something with his computer, quite possibly playing solitary.

“Are you sad, master Anthony?”

What?

“I knew you fancied Captain yourself, as they say. It seems to me he has chosen another over you. In this kind of situation it is natural to feel also negative emotions towards one’s favorite.”

Tony had to think about it for a while. For his astonishment there was no sexual based jealousy, he was not pissed off to Steve because he had chosen Mr. McGinnis instead of Tony. Now when he was sober and could see more than those thighs and the ass and the pecs which were like pillows, Tony had realized that more than anything he wanted to be Steve’s friend. Yes, a friend without the benefits or a boy in the beginning. Far less complicated and more satisfying that way. He wanted Steve to respect him.

“Sometimes we are unknowingly lucky when we don’t get what we initially wish for. That gives us time to look around and… it can happen that the thing we really need is so near that we have dismissed it just because it is so familiar.”

A wave of betrayal washed over Tony. These were the things he hadn’t expected to hear from Jarvis, a sermon worth of Tony’s dear old dad, about the suitable matches for the heir of Stark business empire. Ten bucks said Jarvis was talking about Pepper again. Virginia “Pepper” Potts. She was officially Tony’s personal assistant, but in practice she worked as an assistant director of SI while Tony was avengering or binge-inventing. (Or being on a bender as had happen before he decided to sober up.)

“Yeah, all suitable parts in a collector’s box”, Tony counted. “Intelligence, check. Good durability for my annoying habits, double check. Very camera friendly, all right, why every redhead hates his or her freckles, I think they are charming, not on a certain former SS-man, but on a woman, yes. And the lady parts, check, check, check.”

Jarvis’s brows could be more scary than Thor’s, and that guy had one pushy visage.

“I don’t favor Ms. Potts because she is a woman. Never consider things like that about me, master Anthony. I am not your father.”

“Yes, I know, Jarvis. I am sorry. I just...”

Not jealous. But he felt left behind. Pushed aside when one found a shinier toy. A story of his life.

“Please, master Anthony. Give Captain some slack. When you are on the edge of falling in love yourself, you will certainly understand.”

Could it really be? Could Steve fall in love with that former Nazi bastard?

That must be it, Tony realized. They had that bound-thing. Did that mean it was not just lust involved, but real feelings? Even on Ginger Spice’s part?

“That may certainly be, or if it is not already, it will happen during a short time. Mr. McGinnis has lived the life Captain left behind only half a year ago. They are the same generation and they share the same set of values and habits most people nowadays find difficult to appreciate or accept. And there is… Master Anthony, you may have not noticed, but Captain’s sunny exterior conceals darkness I am afraid you are not able to understand and even less to handle. Mr. McGinnis has walked even darker paths.”

That made Tony perplexed. Jarvis certainly knew who Tony’s father was, and what he had done to his son. At the beginning of his heroic career, Tony had been kidnapped by the terrorists, and almost died betrayed by an old family friend. If that didn’t qualify him to understand dark feelings, he didn’t know what would do the trick.

“I am not talking about the darkness a victim have to endure, but a perpetrator.”

A perpetrator… but it was Steve! He was the sweetest guy there was.

“He was a soldier. Soldiers do horrible things, and even if they do them for a rightful cause, they pay the price. Not to mention he is Catholic... has he told you what he was thinking while going under the water inside his plane. His Confession?”

“When did you…”

“When he was here for the team’s movie nights. He usually couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares. He didn’t let me prepare his milk or sandwiches, but we talked here in the kitchen.”

Tony hadn’t even realized. Some friend he was.

“You have your own issues, master Anthony. They are not less complex or less meaningful and certainly not yet dissolved. As I said, sir. If you are considering a permanent romantic company, I suggest someone uncomplicated and sensible.”

That made Tony smile a little. “Pepper would be pissed off if she heard you call her that. You make her sound more like my mama than a girlfriend candidate.”

“Indeed, sir. Please, manners.”

Tony had finished his cleaning and was now stuffing a new piece of bread into his mouth while talking. Not a pretty sight, he had to admit. “You are not insinuating I am like a little kid, aren’t you, Jarvis?”

“Please, if you are not going to help me to choose between the plates, go play with your toys, master Anthony. Or even better, brush your teeth and go to get some sleep. Don’t let bedbugs bite.”

“Bite me, old man.”

“Oh, it is teenage already”, Tony heard Jarvis crispy voice as he entered an elevator. “How fast the time flies.”

For his own astonishment, Tony went to the bed. Just to make some point (which was vague for him too) he indeed brushed his teeth and took a late shower and then curled up under the cover. He fell asleep right away, but too soon it was already breakfast time, and Barton, that ass, was knocking on his door.

“Man of Iron!” Thor bellowed the greeting from the breakfast table. Maybe he said something else, but it was muffed with a stack of pancakes, which the Asgardian was shoveling into his mouth with his usual, healthy efficiency.

“Hello stranger. We missed you last night.”

That was Janet, who always looked so disgustingly fresh in the morning. Tony mumbled nothing intelligent and wandered to the place where the coffee maker usually was when he remembered… Yes, no coffee maker, but Jarvis, bless his soul, had persuaded somebody to make a coffee run. Natasha, probably, because nobody else seemed to remember how Tony liked his coffee (lots of it and black as his fingertips after three-day tinkering in his garage). The spy flash assassin let her lips curve into font smile as Tony took the first three big gulps from his half a liter cup.

“I knocked”, Clint was explaining to Sam. “I really tried to make them come to eat with us, but Cap shouted he would throw me down the stairs if I don’t cease. I don’t know, maybe they expect Jarvis to provide them with a room service. You know, the wedding night and all. I don’t know, I could volunteer. Just for curiosity, you know. To ask how did it go. I mean… they are both so old, and Z couldn’t handle even a handshake for like decades? I bet he is _like a virgin… touched_ _for_ _the very first time._ Don’t you guys wonder… I saw this documentary about Amish people, and there was this newly wed couple. They were so adorably innocent I didn’t know would I have liked to cuddle or strangle them. What about you Tony, didn’t you recommend some videos or something? We shouldn’t let them spent the night wondering which parts should go to where. That would be lame.”

If Tony hadn’t been looking at Nat, he wouldn’t have seen Steve and Mr. McGinnis coming to the scene during Clint’s feeble Madonna interpretation. They were standing at the kitchen door, listening. Obviously Barton hadn’t read the memo Fury gave them about Steve’s origins. He was still fixated on that silly TV-movie about Steve and Peggy Carter. Poor, innocent Steve, who hadn’t gotten a dance with his best girl before going into the ice. (Dancing being a euphemism for you-know-what.)

“Do you know what the Commandos said about the A in my helmet?” Steve started in the conversational tones. “Could you guess what does the letter really stand for, Clint?”

“Awesome?” Barton deadpanned.

“Good save”, Sam laughed. “But seriously guys, are you alright? We first thought somebody had attacked here.”

“Yes”, Steve admitted, making a face. “Is Jarvis sleeping? He shouldn’t have had to clean after us. We would have done it in the morning.”

“It was already half done when I came up from the shop”, Tony explained. “You should be much faster to beat him. And please, please, don’t make a fuss about it. He really meant it when he said he didn’t mind.”

This was the usual breakfast setting in the Mansion. The kitchen was homey in a way Howard’s grand dining hall never was. People coming and going. Stealing from each others plates and making stupid jokes.

Tony sighed. Adding Mr. McGinnis to the mix shouldn’t be a hardship, but it still kind of was. He definitely needed to drink his coffee to endure all those glimpses the Nazi bastard was stealing to Steve when the man was not looking.

“I will make porridge for me and Z… Does anyone else want some?”

Clint was devastated. “Porridge, when Jarvis made us pancakes with his home-made jam!”

“He did all this?” Now Steve was starting to look agitated. There were toast, bacon, and tiny sausages. Scrambled eggs, which turned to be egg whites for Janet. “He was awake a half-night cleaning our mess, and he still rose up to make the breakfast? That’s it, Tony you have to figure out something for me to do for him.”

“Well, he likes porridge”, Tony hesitated. “He has GERD, that’s a form of acid reflux. He can’t eat much at one go, so he probably does appreciate a healthy snack before the lunch.”

Steve took a big pot and prepared it with water, salt, and oatmeal. When he took a bag of sugar, Mr. McGinnis grimaced and asked if he could put less this time.

“Those selfies in your report”, Janet remembered. “Did you really sent those photos to your relatives?”

“Wait, what photos?”

“Clint, for the last time! Read! Please, guys. Show him.”

Steve winked to Janet, giving his dipper to Mr. McGinnis, who set himself in front of the pot. Steve circled his middle section with his arms and let his jaw rest on his shoulder. It was very domestic, and also very cute and sexy after Mr. McGinnis raised his hand and petted Steve’s cheek, making Steve to start peppering little kisses on Mr. McGinnis’s ear and neck.

“You two are fucking crazy”, Clint mumbled. “That guy was a few weeks ago one of our deadliest woes.”

Mr. McGinnis’s lips puckered and he let out an audible snort.

“What is so fucking funny?”

“Like Fury wouldn’t have locked me up himself if his favorite children got hurt during our little activity hour.”

“Yeah!” Clint started to sound pissed off. “Like you pretended those… what the hell, of course you pretended those! You fucker, you almost...”

“Clint, stop that”, Natasha interrupted, before Clint was able to work himself into a rage. “I knew something was off, but I dismissed it. During that somersault with your cape around Clint’s upper body”, Nat shook her head. “You could have stabbed him many times. And that time when you broke his nose with the hilt of your sword... Were you trying to tell us something?”

“Barton has arrows. Long range things. One should keep oneself long range if one is not comfortable with hand-to-hand combat.”

“Yeah! Why don’t I show you some close range moves...”

“Mine”, Steve said, putting himself between the agitated men. “You keep yourself on the roof, Clint. As I have asked you to do. Right? Close range… only me.”

Then the geriatric duo was smooching again. There, in Tony’s kitchen. In the middle of the Avengers eating breakfast.

“That is so unfair”, Janet huffed after Thor’s hollering had died down. “We thought ahead all kinds of double meaning jokes and you are just so adult and homely erotic about all this.”

“Yeah, Cap”, Sam agreed. “Why can’t we make you blush? You are from the 40s, you can’t be used to the PDA of any kind, and you are both light as a bag of flour, it is unnatural your skins don’t react. Is it because of the serum? The spell?”

“Of course not. I am Steven Grant Rogers, a son of Miss Sarah Rogers and everybody knows by looking at her empty ring finger that she has no shame what so ever. Blushing equals guilty feelings. No quilt, no shame, no blushes.”

“Emotions are dangerous”, Mr. McGinnis confirmed. “Showing a needless emotion is like revealing your chest and then giving a dagger to your enemy’s hand.”

“Bezesus”, Sam sighed. “Doc Samson will have a field day with you two.”

“Yes, he had mentioned a few times I have a contradictory personality. Ah, Jarvis! We are making porridge. Tony said you may want some?”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Rogers. Please, be free to leave my share in the pot. I will return for it later.”

The old man made his gaze linger over their heads before he directed himself towards the utility room. It was as if Jarvis’s brow had screamed aloud: _now did you see how it is done, you useless wankers._

“By the way, Jarvis. Did you wipe the table?”

Mr. McGinnis had turned to stir the porridge, so Steve’s wink to the old man went unnoticed by anybody else than Tony. And Nat.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Thoroughly, I hope. There could have been bits of little something.”

Jarvis seemed to consider the situation again, and then he shook his head, a regretful set on his face, even if Tony notices those little signs the old man was utterly amused. “Ah. Yes, now that you mentioned about it. I may have been tired and careless last night. Please, excuse me, gentlemen. Ms. Van Dyne. Ms. Romanoff.”

Jarvis was through the door before anybody was able to comment the strange conversation. Barton had snatched his hand off the table as if the furniture had turned into a hot oven.

“I am going to puke”, Clint said, staring at his half-eaten load of pancakes on the plate which was touching the now ruined kitchen table. “Honesty I am. Is there no horizontal plane you two hadn’t christened?”

“Nope. And all the walls are not safe either.”

“I hate you.”

“Oh Clint”, Steve simpered. “I am just _kidding_.”

Sam laughed so loud he got coffee burns inside his nose. “Payback is a bitch, Clint. Those old boys know all your tricks and have probably invented some of them.”

Tony sipped his own coffee and listened the banter go on. The team was curiously relaxed around the former Hydra Commander, but finally it was like Nat had said; if Mr. McGinnis would have wanted to harm them, he had had plenty of opportunities.

The porridge was surprisingly good too. Steve put lots of sugar to his portion, but it really didn’t need it, milk and Jarvis’s jam was more than enough. Tony realized he had eaten a healthy meal without a single word of complain. That was what a guilty conscious did to you, he decided. When Steve was done and rinsing his dishes, to put them to the washing machine, Tony knew he had to say something about the last night, otherwise he couldn’t look Steve in the eye ever again.

His friend’s face pinched when Tony asked if they could have a word in private. Steve nodded and followed him to the lounge. Tony sat in the sofa his father had passed out so many times, but he was too agitated to keep still. He was soon up again.

“I am so sorry, Tony. I know I screwed up, and it will take a lot of time to pay you back all the things we broke, but...”

“Whoa!” Tony shouted, making whooshing gestures with his hands. “That was not… I would never ask you to pay anything, it was an accident. We have an insurance, and anyway, I have plenty of money, and you have not… plenty. So...”

“Well, it was still bad taste”, Steve admitted. “I knew you carried a torch for me. I shouldn’t rub your nose into the fact I am wooed by some other fella.”

“What! No, you can rub anything you want… Listen Steve, I know I came on you strongly, but I am actually pleased you were able to resist my charm.”

Steve’s snort sounded like a horse with a stuffy nose.

“Yes, you really know how to raise the guy’s self-esteem! What I am saying, I was thinking and Jarvis said it also... I really want to be just friends, but me being me… I mean, the friends should be honest with each others, right?”

“Right”, Steve hesitated and when he spoke again, it was his Captain voice. “Tony, what have you done?”

“You know we have normal security cams inside the mansion, but Fury installed his peepcams everywhere. I mean literally everywhere, even into the swimming pool, under the water. I may have taken a peek… I wanted to see you were alright after Z stabbed you.”

“Tony, we were practicing. It was only a flesh wound.”

“Yeah, but I panicked, and then you started snogging at the sickbay… I was able to turn the cam off, but later, when I checked on you… I kind of… I maybe looked a while… a few minutes…”

Tony Stark, a playboy extraordinaire, who one time found himself under the pile of three naked women while having a tremendous attack of diarrhea, (which got only worse when he started laughing,) was now in the verge of an anxious breakdown during a simple conversation with his teammate. If this was what being decent really meant, Tony didn’t like it one bit.

He jumped backwards when those huge hands settled on his shoulders. Steve didn’t seem angry, though, actually he looked amused, which was some way worse. “Tony, do you remember what I promised to you?”

“Yes”, Tony hesitated. “I think so?”

“Exactly, and I didn’t especially say I have to be inside my clothes when you look at my ass.”

For his eternal horror and shame Tony felt how the tears started sliding unlovely over his cheeks and into his goatee.

“Tony”, Steve repeated, and now their fearless leader sounded worried.

“Please, don’t be nice to me, Steve. I thought I am shithead only when I am drunk or high. Like dad… but I am worse than him because obviously I am like that all the time.”

Then it was hugging break again. Tony hated himself for being so needy and wasting Steve’s time when he could be in the gym, pumping iron with those magnificent biceps of his. Steve looked sad and Tony realized that he had accidentally stated the huge part of the problem: Steve had nothing else to do during his free time than to read or exercise and he had to be frustrated about the situation, which reminded him about the way he had idled his days away in Carl’s bed. A man like Steve needed goals which were bigger than life itself. He was not a hedonist like Tony, who could happily share his days between inventing and carousing.

They talked some team business before Tony went back to his shop (he had two hours before Pepper would pester him about the board meeting) where he took his tablet to look at his latest designs. It didn’t happen because the moment he activated his password the speakers started blasting some god-awful Nazi song. (Or at least it was German, he assumed the Nazi part.)

_Der Heller ward zu Wasser_

_Der Batzen ward zu Wein, ja Wein_

_Der Heller ward zu Wasser_

_Der Batzen ward zu Wein_

Alright, all-mighty Internet told Tony there were no Nazis involved, it was a damn drinking song from the 19th century. (A drinking song… and why something like that exactly, if it was not an attempt to insinuate something.) In his mail there was a message from Mr. McGinnis. It was about the vulnerability Mr. McGinnis had talked about before, and Tony had stated didn’t exist. Obviously, something existed and somehow Mr. McGinnis had succeeded to made it so Tony couldn’t turn the sound off before he had checked out his whole security protocol. Or at least that Tony assumed. Hoped. _Sorry Pepper_ , Tony thought, _this will take time._ And coffee. Probably a new coffee maker would have arrived before Tony felt like a break.

Some other things had been clarified in the process. Mr. McGinnis was pissing circles around the dear Captain. Tony remembered Jarvis’s words, and he didn’t know should he be annoyed or happy for his friend.

_Heidi, heido, heida,_

_Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha_

Annoyed, he decided, after hearing that idiotic refrain the fourteenth time. Very much so. He could always break his speakers, but it was a matter of pride now. Twenty minutes more, and he had made it, but even if the song was now halted, he could still hear it in his ears.

An alarm felt like he was saved by the bell. It was not for assemble, though. He had made his computer to encrypt and search the Hydra files (without Fury’s permission, but what the heck, the Director would be pleased anyway if he found something interesting) and now there seemed to be a match within the parameters Tony had given her.

It wasn’t about Tony. Not even about Iron Man or SI. It was about Howard. Intrigued, he halted his other works and started reading.


	15. Winter is Coming (Put Your Parka On)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony reads something upsetting from the Hydra files, but is everything really as it seems or is Tony making a mistake he can’t undo?

First blast was as much surprise for Helmut as it was for Fury. There was now a huge hole in the concrete beside them, not so differently scarred than those collateral damages Iron Man’s repulsors produced. Thank God, there had not been any agents working in the room behind the corridor wall. That was it then, Helmut thought as he rolled aside, pulling at the same time one of his hidden blades. His own movement wasn’t even halted before he let the weapon fly. His cover had to be blown, and some of the agents were trying to collect the reward on his head. How peculiar idea to do that there in the SHIELD base, but that thought didn’t come to Helmut until it was too late, the blade was in the air and flying towards Tony Stark, billionaire, philanthropist, genius, and a wanna-be killer of Helmut Zemo, a former Hydra Commander.

Just twenty minutes before, Helmut had been in the Director’s office, ruffing more Avenger feathers. That time it had been Barton, who had been relieved to know Fury hadn’t called him to the meeting just to kick him out of the team. Why Hawkeye’s first thought had been something like that, told Helmut he too had been thinking his performance in the field and found it lacking. It was then hilarious to see Barton’s face, when Fury asked him to be a new leader of the Thunderbolts.

Let’s face the facts. As much as Helmut had been enjoying playing with the rookie heroes, he had no means to do that anymore, if he wanted to avoid a danger for himself and his former team. Hawkeye had been his choice from the very start, and all those humiliating sparring movements during the fight was Helmut pulling Clint’s pig-tales, as Barton wanted to state the idea. Who indeed was better suited to understand and lead a band of former criminals and misfits than the man who had been one himself. The members of the Thunderbolts had superpowers Clint continued to lack, but that was the point; it was an environment Barton had used to work. And he had enough cunning and streets marts to replace two Baron Zemos if he really wanted to take a job.

Barton did, after they had both assured him a dozen times they really mean it, the idea was not just a joke to prank the prankster. The debriefing took almost three hours, because Helmut didn’t trust Barton would read any memo he would write to him (Helmut did that memo also, naturally!)

Later they had to plan, how Barton would contact his new protegees, because Baron Zemo couldn’t be the one to make the introductions. (The reward could be too much of a temptation and Helmut didn’t want to try his luck when it was not absolutely necessary.) Overall, it had been the most satisfactory morning, and he and Fury had been on the road to the canteen, to have some lunch, when _that_ happened.

Tony was standing in the middle of the corridor in his full armored glory and preparing to blast them again. Or was it Tony? Helmut reached with his mind while he pushed Fury from the harms way, in the last minute, as the new repulsor blast singed his hair. Helmut was hit with a heady mix of their attacker’s dizziness, anger, and grief. To his mostly untested powers it still tasted like Tony, and he didn’t feel as he was mind-controlled, more like intoxicated, in plain English, he was drunk like a sailor on shore leave, and full of furious determination which was focused on Helmut. Fortunately, his aim was not as well placed and Helmut and Fury were now around the corner.

“It is him”, Helmut said, answering Fury’s unsaid question.

“Stark! What the fuck!” Fury shouted. “Stand down, Iron Man. What is wrong with you? You almost hit us!”

“Stay out of this Fury”, Tony screamed. Iron Man armor was not the fastest thing to jog around, but it was gaining them, and then Stark shot again, scorching the hair of the agent coming from the video conference room, and Helmut thought enough was enough. Fury continued running a while after Helmut halted and turned to face their adversary. The blades were out of the question. If Helmut was able to hit the eye socket of the faceplate, it would not penetrate the thick lens, and even if it did, he really didn’t want to explain to Steve why he had gained another teammate lacking an eye.

“What’s the matter, Fury”, Tony singsonged after the Director returned to stand beside Helmut. “Just doing some spring cleaning! I think the others would vote we don’t need traitors… if… d-did you know about my parents? Did you know it, Fury? It was not a fucking car accident! Did you know?!”

“I knew.”

Tony halted as if he had waited some other answer, waited for Fury to lie. The standstill didn’t last long, as he shot the wall above Fury’s head, screaming like a wounded animal. His faceplate was now up, it would have been a simple task to hit him with a blade, but Helmut couldn’t. He knew as well as Fury what Tony was talking about.

“My ma! You let those Nazi bastards… They killed my ma!”

“Tony...” Fury tried, stepping forward, but that made only the repulsor rose again. Tony’s arms were swaying, but from that distance only way to miss was to shoot his own foot. Helmut hurried in front of Fury which gained him a broken chuckle from Tony.

“Do you recall Fury, in that meeting, I asked how long Zemo had been on our side and you didn’t answer me, and t-then we went to his headspace and we were hand-fed some sappy pictures about Peggy Carter and everybody went _aawwww_ and didn’t ask him anything complicated after that. Steve fucking did you his special porridge!”

Tony shouted in rage again, his mood swinging between misery and white-hot anger. There was no placating the man, it was stupid even to try. Only damage control Helmut could do was to get the director out of the harms way.

“That might be, but leave Fury out of this. There was nothing he could have done. I was sure there was no paper trail pointing towards me. If I had known, I would have talked with you.”

“Talked”, Tony gave them a hollow laugh through the armor’s microphones, his faceplate down again. “You would have fucking _talked_ … Just looking and doing nothing, that would have been bad enough, but that I could have forgiven, maybe, in a thousands years... b-because of Steve… But you! You hand-picked and signed the strike team yourself! You shit! You chose… you asked for the Winter Soldier! Some unstoppable killing machine, and my ma...”

“Tony, I did it, because…”

But Tony wasn’t done yet.

“You know what the funny thing is? The ha-ha-part of this mess? How little circles… everything goes round and round, like a snake eating its own tail. Wouldn’t Steve be surprised! His best friend Bucky, still walking on the face of earth… Oh, but now I got it! You were saving that information as a wedding present!”

Alright, now Helmut was totally screwed. (Like he hadn’t been already a minute ago!)

“Yeah, I know who that Winder Soldier is”, Tony continued. “There were lots of encrypted files about them. Can you guess what Steve will say when I tell him? Yeah, this one here”, Tony was now addressing the cameras monitoring the corridor. “Ginger Spice here, h-he is Baron Helmut Zemo in disguise. He killed my ma and the guy who donated some seed to make me. Seventy million this morning, does anybody want to collect? Come, come, where ever you are, I can save you a piece of this murdering Nazi shit if you say a p-pretty please.”

And there went his cover. It could have been avoided, if he hadn’t wanted to talk with Tony, no matter how drunk he was, explain himself a little before he would have done… this. It was the first time Helmut tried it without Professor Xavier’s guidance, but it felt the same as previously, he took a hold of Tony’s mind, pulled, and then Tony was diving into his mindplace like a supernova, screaming in rage, torching everything he touched and filling Helmut with the flavor of his feelings. Helmut ripped Tony’s avatar off his armor, let him drop into the lake near the castle Zemo. The Guardian was ready with a small boat and started to paddle towards Tony who wriggled in the water, the turmoil of his mind temporarily tampered by the surprise.

Helmut had no time to breath a sigh of relief, because in the real world the armor didn’t halt but took a step towards him, raised its gauntlet and targeted a repulsor straight to his chest.

What the hell! Could his armor function without Tony? He had mentioned a new AI.

That was no matter now. He was dead, Helmut knew. Fury besides him had his gun drawn but that was as useless as Helmut’s blades. He closed his eyes, readying himself to take a killer shot, but before the repulsor blasted there was a flash of red, white, and blue. The Captain’s shield took a brunt of the strike and collided with the armor which swayed and then dropped on its ass on the floor like a diabetic in the cake tasting competition.

Steve stood above Tony, heedless to the danger, ready to do his move again, even if his muscles were still resonating after the collision with the pissed off Avenger and his heap of tech and heavy metal.

Nothing happened. Maybe the armor was able to continue the movement it had started, but not to begin something new? Steve grabbed his arm and helped Helmut up a tad rougher than necessary. Fury had put his gun away and was assessing the situation.

“Jesus, that was a close one. Fortunately we didn’t have time to use that concentrated EM pulse, I don’t need anything to fuck up all the computers and the security systems of this side of the base. I assume you followed our conversation through your comm?”

Steve nodded tightly.

“Alright… First of all, before Z brings Tony back, we need to get him out of his armor, or that shit starts all over again. Do you know how to do that?”

If Steve couldn’t Fury certainly did. As did Helmut, but Steve’s gaze didn’t encourage him to offer his help. They waited when Steve first opened the faceplate, pushing his fingers against Tony’s neck to find a pulse. When he was satisfied with the rhythm of his teammate’s heartbeat, he continued, finding every hidden nook, pealing Tony out of his suit from limb to limb until only the breastplate remained. That was more difficult to remove, probably because before Tony’s heart transplant the plate and its sophisticated medical technology was the only thing keeping the man alive. Helmut observed how Steve’s jaw muscles hopped as his fingers slipped repeatedly from the hidden trap. After a few so strong electric shocks they made Steve’s teeth rattle, Tony was lying armor-free on the corridor floor. His haste to rush after Helmut was obvious, he hadn’t made time to change into his usual black onesie, but had put his armor on while dressed in his ratty workshop sweatpants and an alcohol-soiled T-shirt. He had soiled something else too, Helmut noticed as the familiar stench filled the air.

“Jesus”, Fury repeated himself. “Rogers, carry him to the sickbay. Agent Sanders, get some trolley and deliver the armor to my office. And you”, he continued, turning to address Helmut. “Be ready to bring him back to himself the first moment his ass hits the mattress.”

That would be fun, Helmut knew. After the initial shock, Tony had remembered his previous state of mind. He was right now chasing the Guardian around the shore with a paddle in his hand, and not even Bambi’s pitiful cries diminished his anger. Percival was standing like a giant statue he was, looking the show with an air of a fed-upped babysitter.

“Tony didn’t pass out on his own?” Steve ensured. “If you used your usual mind trick… How are you still conscious?”

“I just needed some practice.”

That was a minor understatement, but Steve didn’t need to know that. He had lowered Tony to the nearest bed and was now looking everywhere else than Helmut. They would have a few short moments alone, Fury had gone to explain the situation to the doctor. He was calling Doc Samson, to notify him about Tony’s relapse.

Steve’s lips twisted. A private joke, some irony. He had sometime said how he wasn’t interested in waiting the other shoe to drop, because it would always do that, unavoidably. “I knew we had issues we had to talk about, but this is a bit much.”

Helmut nodded, to deny or affirm, he didn’t know and stayed silent. The next time Steve spoke, it was with his Captain voice, his best chance to deal with the matter in a rational way. Somehow it made everything feel worse for Helmut.

“Tony said the Winder Soldier killed his parents”, Steve started, taking a role of an interrogator. “I assume the real target was Howard Stark. Any special reason?”

“He was a threat. He made efficient weapons and didn’t sell them to Hydra.”

“And you ordered the Winter Soldier to get rid of him?”

“It is complicated.”

Now Steve let out a dry chuckle. “It always is with you guys. He murdered Stark, and god only knows how many others during the years. My Bucky. My god, he will never get over it.”

That magnificent jaw jumped. Helmut waited a fist into his face, but it didn’t come. Even Fury, who had come back and was listening to them at the door, seemed surprised by Steve’s self-restrain.

“Why didn’t you do anything?”

First Helmut didn’t hear Steve’s question over the rush of blood in his ears. The truth didn’t feel worth saying either.

“It wasn’t my first priority.”

Now, finally, his bluntness made Steve clench his fist. “Is that so.”

“There was no best friend worrying about him that time. You were inside an ice cube somewhere. So yes, not my first priority.”

“Because it would have compromised your position?”

“That and… the Winter Soldiers fall under the Hydra North command. That is a way over my jurisdiction.”

Those blue, cold eyes turned from Helmut to Fury as Captain seemed to calculate something. “You and Fury… the big picture.”

“Yes.”

“Right. In these make-believe armies you both rank higher than me, Commander.”

That made Fury’s eyebrow shot to the hairline, but Helmut knew that steadfast gaze, had seen it in action; Captain was already planning some hay-wire suicide mission to rescue his former friend.

What made him weep inside was a cold and sneering way he had been called by his former rank. It made him feel so tiny and rotten inside, when at the same time, Steve’s tone and the word was rallying his resistance. If that was what Steve really wanted, that was what he would get; the Commander of Hydra. A man who had survived (he had died a few times during the decades, but who was counting?) as a double agent in a place which made the court of Ivan the Terrible look like a Disney theme park.

“Think Captain, if Fury doesn’t give you a team to get Barnes. You go all alone and then you die. Do you think your friend would tolerate that after all those years and trouble to keep you alive?”

“That is not...”

Helmut interrupted him. “A honest answer, Steve. For Bucky.”

“Alright”, Steve hissed from between his gritted teeth. “He would be pissed off. He would tell me no. He would never forgive me. But so what. He would be alive.”

“Maybe. At least what is left of him, and I can’t underline this one enough: what is left is not much. And that is what to expect only after the mission is successful, which in itself is unlikely. If you could just walk in and borrow some of the world famous killing machines, every terrorist or criminal organization would have tried that one already. Furthermore, if you by some miracle find and breach the moving base the Winter Soldiers are kept, they will need a special code to be activated. Without the codes you have in your hands a few hundred pounds of high-tech corpse. Tell me Captain, do you recall what is the first rule of the rescue missions?”

“I can tell”, Fury said, after Steve lapsed into the silence. “You have lived it, Cap. You didn’t order your men to rescue one soldier, if you were in a danger to lose more men by doing so. That rule doesn’t apply, if the one the enemy is after is more valuable than the men who are trying to save him, but only then.”

“You are saying Bucky is not valuable?”

Steve looked like he was choking, but Fury hadn’t finished his explanations. “Not in a strategic sense, he is not. Maybe he has some value by being vital to your mental health, but you are talking about retiring anyway. So, he is your friend, but the Shield can’t use him, which mean no objective, strategic value. Let’s think I give you a permission to launch that mission anyway. You gather a team, and then what. You accomplish your goal, but probably with heavy cost. How about all our agents who will die during this mission? They are people you have seen in the cafeteria and the shooting range. How do you explain to their friends and families that a man who probably would have died of the natural causes years ago, that piece of man who was some time Captain America’s best friend, is somehow more valuable than their loved ones?”

That was clever of Fury. Making Steve to think he was pulling his reputation as a national icon over his colleagues. Helmut hoped it would be enough, to make Steve stop thinking about this folly.

“Damn you. You did this because of your jealousy.”

Or maybe not.

“I bet you knew how to make it happen, maybe you are plotting the mission as a mental exercise right now as any good officer could, but you are sitting on that crucial information because of your personal feelings.”

“That would be the most unprofessional of me”, Helmut said and was proud to notice his voice didn’t sound funny. He wasn’t hurt by the knowledge Steve thought so little of him. Not much. Just contemplating about hurting Steve was unthinkable whether it would be physical of mental. How could Steve not see that?

“Can you really say your feelings doesn’t affect your decision making? That you have made an objective choice after pondering the pros and cons of the task?”

Helmut nodded.

“You can’t even say it aloud”, Steve mocked him. “So you lied.”

“You are not an empath. You can’t tell if I do.”

“That is so pathetic.” Steve’s smile gained a nasty edge. “You hanging onto something you never had in the first place. A mighty Hydra Commander. So dazzled by Captain America he can’t see straight. Afraid to waste all that wonderful power you will get through our bond.”

Helmut should have said something. How this was about him and Steve, not about Captain or power or anything including the Shield or Hydra or Fury’s games. Just Steve. Even with his skills or mutant powers Helmut might not be physically stronger than Captain America, but he could best any psi-null adversary with a mere thought. (As Tony had already seen.) He didn’t need more power, he just needed Steve… But Steve already thought Helmut was too involved in this matter on a personal level, making life altering decisions with his dick. He would never believe any confessions of affection Helmut would utter to him. And those would go to waste, anyway. Steve had made enthusiastically clear he was in for a joyride, but something real and intimate with a Nazi war criminal? An actual relationship? That was where Steve’s morals drew a line.

Nothing much to discuss after that. Helmut woke Tony up, and it was a scene of lots of hugs and snotty noses. Or that he saw from the security cam of the sickbay through Fury’s tablet. Steve got the situation with Tony well in hand, Helmut and Fury had more urgent business to discuss. There was Stark’s exclamations about his identity, and even if by some miracle there were no double, foreign or any other shady agents among the Shield personnel, the very human trait of greed was too heavy object to wrestle with; the reward for Helmut’s head was now 85 million and still increasing. They had to find a safe place for him as a temporary hide out. Then… he didn’t know yet, but it was obvious his magical mask was not safe any more. He could ask a different one from Strange, but how transparent was that. Every new face among the Shield and the Avenger team would be under a heavy scrutiny when people now knew what to look for. Lots of things to do then, only a little time. Sooner he had some safe spot and a computer, the better it would be.

*

The next days and weeks were only a blur for Tony. Afterwards, he remembered Steve, how his teammate had listened his relentless rants against Hydra and one certain former Hydra Commander. He recalled how he had tried to continue drinking and Steve had gotten Doc Samson inject him with disulfiram. Tony had puked all over Steve’s clothes for revenge, but the medication helped, the side effects of the anti-alcohol drug were with him always so strong and unpleasant, he had started to plot some other means to diminish his newly opened sorrow and hurt.

That plan didn’t go overly well either. A few days later he got himself hospitalized by overdosing with some designer drug more plebeian party poppers hadn’t heard about yet.

So Iron Man was continuing his medical leave from the Avengers rooster. Tony remembered vaguely, how Natasha had given him her unsatisfied eyebrow and Janet had tried to reason with him. Clint wasn’t… Clint hadn’t been around much lately, maybe there was a reason for it, but Tony hadn’t paid attention. Sam avoided him, probably expecting more insults now when Tony’s inhibitors were lowered further by the chemicals. Thor had been confused about the concept someone could drink too much, so he wasn’t any help, but he had mentioned the parties in Asgard where it was more a rule than an exception to drink until you passed out, and then the next day, you kicked hangover to the butt in the battlefield.

A party! What a splendid idea! Maybe Tony had hanged with the Avengers too much, he had been holed in his workshop too long, inventing for his teammates and Fury, and had he gotten any thanks for that? No thanks. (A word play! So clever of you, Tony old boy.) So… a party would be like a long-waited reward for all his hard work. And what a party it would be! Tony wouldn’t be satisfied nothing less than the most swanky and exclusive thing to be this year if you were a socialite or A-list celebrity, and non of his snotty teammates were invited.

He remembered Steve standing besides his over-sized bed in his Manhattan penthouse. There were other peoples too, but he tried to focus on Steve even if some guy’s knee was pushed ungainly against his groin and the massive flocks of hair of a medusa-lady were creeping into his mouth every time he uttered a word.

“He left, Tony. Helmut just left. He went to hiding somewhere and he didn’t even ask me to come with him. No goodbyes, no anything. I am not asking you to forgive me for speaking like this. To want to go with him. I don’t say you can’t be sad and angry and felt betrayed, Tony, but are you really doing a clever thing here, fella? I am a mess, I can’t look after you any more, but I’ve waited until somebody else was available to take my place.”

Always a hero. He tried to smile to take a sting out of his words but the crumpling of Steve’s beautiful, patriotic countenance told him he had utterly failed.

“Please, don’t make fun of me, Tony. Don’t judge me, I know I am weak, and no good but… If you think anything about our friendship, please, this time, restrain that sharp and clever tongue of yours.”

He had gotten Captain America to cry. Captain America never cried. Or did he? Steve certainly did, and he was still silently shedding tears as he rubbed Tony’s face with a tissue he had wet in a water pitcher, wiping away cum and vomit, and tears from Tony’s own eyes.

“I am going to England. I asked Fury to make arrangements, and it is long overdue, anyway. See you around, Tony. Try to get better.”

He felt Steve’s lips on his forehead (maybe Steve had cleaned him for that reason). First he thought Steve had left him alone, (as alone as you can be with two other people in your bed) but he should have known better. Next time he woke up, it was not a gentle touch of a wet towel. Somebody took a hold of his arms and dragged his ass over the floor to the bathroom, put Tony into the sitting position in the shower and turned the cold water on. That was the first clue Steve had contacted James Rhodes, Tony’s oldest friend, who was not happy to end his tour prematurely just to keep Tony’s hand (away from the whiskey bottle).

So Tony had a chance to rave to the fresh ears. (Of course he had done that over the phone a dozen times, but face-to-face still made all the difference.)

He didn’t know who had had enough first, was it Rhodey or maybe Fury, but somehow Tony found himself sitting in the director’s office, like a damn schoolkid waiting to be scolded by a principal. Rhodey was waiting in the cafeteria like a worried parent he was.

“You are wasting your time, Fury.” Tony hurried to say before Fury was able to start his usual I-am-so-dissappointed-such-a-smart-guy-can-be-so-fucking-stupid -speech. “I know everything you will say, I’ve heard it at least a few times before. What I can’t realize, how do you think this time would make any difference.”

“I see. I doubt you have heard this one, so open your ears, maybe you will indeed learn something. This is a plain, ugly truth of the situation: If your company wasn’t as crucial to us as it had been from your parents time, I wouldn’t ignore this beautiful mess you made, Tony. I would get you arrested.”

“For what reason?” Tony was amused. “I don’t remember signing any treaties I have to be sober while inventing or sitting in my board meetings?”

“No you didn’t, but it would help. You getting yourself drunk and then preening around in your armor, endangering the lives of your fellow agents certainly doesn’t.”

Tony had done the unthinkable, blown the cover of a fellow agent, making him a target to their enemies and just because of petty revenge.

The shithead was dead serious. A fellow agent! That goddammit murdering Nazi scum, as Steve had dubbed him. A petty revenge! That must have been an understatement of the century.

“All right. I see I am not making you any impression. Let’s talk about Howard, then. He was our arm supplier. Of course Hydra wanted him dead and of course we wanted to protect him. We still needed him. You were brilliant, Tony, but just seventeen.”

If he had been older they would have let Hydra kill his mum? Was that what Fury was actually saying?

“Maybe Howard”, Fury said bluntly. “And maybe we should have let them do it sooner anyway. Maybe just to save you from all those psychological traumas made by that drunken, mean sod. That’s right, Tony. You heard me. Who do you think warned us all those previous times about the attacks against your dad? A fairy godmother?”

Mr. McGinnis. He had prevented all those other attacks and boy, there were a few in the file Fury showed him. Tony was confused. What excuse the Hydra Commander had been given all those times, and why the other Nazis didn’t come suspicious? It couldn’t be right. Fury was telling him lies, he had forged the files to make Mr. McGinnis look better. Tony was able to say that much before Fury blew a gasket.

“You ungrateful little shit! He had been one of your team before there wasn’t even the team. Then you turned Rogers against him without giving him time to explain himself, exposed him to his enemies and forced him to run away from the only place which could have given him a proper cover under the nose of those Hydra bastards. He could have continued his work, differently but still useful, and all that potential is now wasted because again you couldn’t handle the things like a rational adult person.”

That was too thick, and Tony said it aloud. Fury answered by changing the scene in their tablets. It was the iconic picture of the Sydney harbor, where the Australian national monument, the Sydney Opera House, stood in ruins.

It had been one of the most devastating terrorist attacks performed before 9/11. The Hydra strike had left behind 1137 dead and 321 wounded, from them 169 with permanent injuries. The list of casualties contained many political, social, and cultural heavyweights, among them the prime minister of United Kingdom and the Governor-General of Australia. Mariinsky Ballet Company lost over hundred of its performers, the most well-known of them being a dancer Alyena Nikolayevna Yemelyanova, who had been well in her way to become _prima ballerina assoluta;_ a title traditionally reserved only for the most exceptional talent of the generation. (Or that was what Wikipedia had told Tony.)

The strike known as the Sydney Bombing launched the manhunt as never seen before and after in the peace time. During the next four years all the terrorists somehow involved in the strike had been identified and executed or brought to the justice. Hydra Commander Helmut Zemo was one of the few still at large, but that could be because of a certain amount of intentional incompetence from the Shield’s part.

“Their timing was the most unfortunate. Z couldn’t screw up both strikes, not without blowing his cover. So he asked me to make a priority list, and I did. And as you can guess, I chose wrong. All those peoples dead because I chose your idiotic, selfish dad.”

“But they are dead too”, Tony said stupidly. “You couldn’t have chosen my parents, because they are dead, and that is…”

“The Hydra got us really good with that one. We thought we got our terrorists, but that team was a decoy. And a few weeks after our great arrest the Sydney Bombing happened. Well, that was not decoy, that was a massacre and just because our whole focus was on a guy who was making keeping himself safe as difficult as possible.”

“And Mr. McGinnis didn’t do anything”, Tony muttered, still rebellious. If he was honest, he didn’t know what to think any more. “He didn’t act himself because he had to maintain his cover. Or his skin. What ever comes to first for a guy like that. Probably they are equally important.”

For a moment Tony thought Fury was about to hit him.

“Mr. McGinnis couldn’t warn us, because he wasn’t among the living that time. He had been beaten to death by Red Skull himself.”

What the hell!

“I knew we were dancing on a razor’s edge. One false move would make everything end up in blood and tears. Of course he still tried and failed. And then he was dead, and there was nobody to tell us the terrorists we had captured were the wrong ones. Who would have thought the Hydra had balls to try the same place again after such a short time? We didn’t, and those people in Sydney paid the prize.”

Tony couldn’t keep still. He took a few hasty steps around Fury’s office, trying to sort out the screaming, panicky voices in his mind.

“He is lying to you. He has to be! Don’t you see, Fury. He is only making himself look good, where is the evidence?”

Fury was now giving him a pitying look and damn, if that didn’t send shivers down his spine. “Tony, we found his body a few weeks later. It was because of co-incidence, mostly. One of our agents among Hydra, he didn’t know Z had worked with us, but he knew Commander Zemo had tried to reason with Red Skull to stop the Sydney attack. He thought Z deserved a decent burial. I find such a sentiment in an agent disturbing and pulled him from the field before he got himself killed. For some reason Mr. Schmidt didn’t remember what he had done, but let Arnim Zola resurrect Z as usual. But now I wonder if that was because of trauma. Killing his own son with his bare hands must have taken toll on his already feeble mental health.”

“His…” Tony’s brain halted, denied to consider the truthfulness or falsehood of Fury’s statement. Fury continued as if he wasn’t noticing Tony’s confusion: “Lucky for Z, Red Skull had forgotten his betrayal. Until now. This situation must have triggered his memory. No wonder he detached Z’s involvement in the info leak so rapidly.”

But… But. But! What about Howard? Tony was afraid to ask, but fortunately (or unfortunately) he didn’t have to, Fury was returning to the main reason they were having this conversation.

“All our equipment were your dad’s designs. He knew how to override our security protocols, how to jam the guns, so there was no use for the good old sleeping-pills-on-a-guard’s-tea –trick. He just knocked them out by sending a near lethal electric shock through their personal weapons, took his wife and a few luggage and drove his car into the night. Or he did until he met the Winter Soldier. We knew that Hydra assassin was sniffing around, but he was too slippery for your agents. If that thing had any feelings I bet he felt amused by the fact his prey was making his job so easy for him.”

Near lethal… His dad… Howard had done what?

“But… but why would he do such a thing”, Tony said weakly when in reality he knew it was clearly Howard’s M.O. His father had never let somebody else to stand in a way of his plans or his pleasures. “He knew you were keeping him and ma safe. Why would he...”

“Tony, I know what you are thinking”, Fury interrupted. “I know what you hope had happen, but he wasn’t in some important personal quest. He sneaked out because he was _bored_. He had complained that enough times. Maybe he saw himself sipping margaritas in a beach somewhere but all he got was an empty and dark road and a busted skull. I was so infuriated with him I felt it had been a proper punishment for his utter assholiness. Your mother was dead and I had agents with first degree burns and one in coma, and all because of we had forbidden him to drink after he had started hitting Maria.”

“Stop”, Tony whispered. “Just… Fury, please...”

It was quite telling Tony didn’t suspect Fury hadn’t told him the truth. In the end it didn’t matter if Z ordered Winter Soldier after his dad. His mother… she had been too loyal, taking her marriage vows in a wrong way. To love… it shouldn’t be an allowance to do as he pleased as a head of the family, when in reality Maria should have put her foot down, left him ages ago and taken Tony with her. And even then… the most stupid thing was Z could have changed Winter Soldier’s orders after his resurrection, but Howard hadn’t given him time. He had liked his booze too much. And now he was dead, Tony’s mother was dead, and Steve...

Fury’s face shut down when Tony asked about his friend. “Steve is not available”, he stated shortly. “You can call it a study leave. As you probably know, he has no actual military training. All his skills had been picked up from the battlefield or with those few instructors Peggy Carter could arrange for him. He absorbed like a sponge all that Romanoff was able to teach him, but her reports tells me he is lacking some basic skills, which even rookie officers took for granted. Then there is that damn technology. Lots to learn before he can be a reliable, functioning operative besides of kicking some alien butt.”

“So you sent him…” A flash of memory came to Tony’s mind. Steve standing beside his bed and talking about England. That meant Steve had seen Tony… oh God! Where were those opening floors when you really needed them?

“He asked to be send there. I think it is in part sentiment and that he could be more freely there, maybe with his contacts and dyed hair nobody will recognize him for a while.”

That could work. Tony thought about him and Steve in a coffee shop or on a bench in the park, Steve with his shades and a cap. There had seldom been any folks to ask for selfies, and when they did, they usually concentrated on Tony. Maybe Steve’s magnetism only worked when he was in his uniform, letting his salad plate fly, and without those clues he was just your basic good-looking jock. Nothing too extraordinary. But hey, then Fury was talking again and a boy, wasn’t that anything Tony wanted to hear. He needed to, though.

“I am sure Steve understands your reasons and your grief, but because of your actions, his significant other is a step closer to death again”, Fury, always a realist, stated. “This will have an effect on our team, there will be tensions. Steve said he understands if you don’t want him in the Avengers any more.”

Of course Steve did. Always a hero. Always a fucking martyr, and Tony was… He remembered Jarvis’s words, how he would understand, when he himself fell in love someday. Oh god, Tony wailed in his mind. What the fuck have I done, and only because I couldn’t handle bad news without booze. He had acted like Howard. A family trait which brought them into this mess in the first place.

“I really blew it this time, didn’t I?”

Tony waited to see grim satisfaction on Fury’s face (Tony Stark admitting he has done something wrong! Without any excuses or whining! Stop to press!) but the director didn’t look smug, only tired and a little sad. “Can I deduce you two are not going to start some kind of civil war over this matter?”

Tony had enough power to shook his head.


	16. A Death in the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helmut goes North, trying to correct an old wrong. Steve is in England, starting a training which should finally justify his moniker.

It had been a good plan. Helmut had made more complicated schemes in the past and executed them without problems, so maybe it was not that he was out of touch of the practical, dirty footwork. Maybe it was not lousy, dated maps and inadequate reckon from his part, just rotten luck which made that steel door stood where it shouldn’t be. Helmut had to admit his knowledge of this bunker system was from the eighties, but the ten inches thick steel door in the middle of nowhere corridor; what the ever-loving fuck!

Why did he ask. He is was in Russia and the bunker was from the Soviet era; the planned economy didn’t leave much room for a common sense. If the superiors said the bunker needed fourteen big-ass steel doors and they got doorways to put up only thirteen, couldn’t they just built one door less? Of course not, and they put the number fourteen in the first suitable place, which had to be in Helmut’s shortcut to the chamber which hosted the Winter Soldiers.

Of course that door to nowhere needed a guard. The situation itself had it pros and cons. Helmut might have been able to crack to door code, but that was a big maybe when he was in a hurry, so the pro side had to be the guard himself, who would open the door for him. Unfortunately for Helmut’s plan, the guard wasn’t the type who had joined the Hydra because of their masterful medical plan (for the whole family) or paid vacation time (four weeks a year!). Oh no, this one was that other kind which mercifully covered only 29 percent of all Hydra personnel nowadays; he was in Hydra for the Cause.

“I refuse to acknowledge any man who betrays his noble heritage! One of our finest officers reduced to a bed warmer of our mortal enemy! No pride, no decency, just a lust for flesh! It is no wonder why the whole world despises you unreliable, unmanly faggots!”

“Corporal Tonkov”, Helmut said, because the guard had his name over his breast pocket and it would have been rude not to use it. “You may not acknowledge me all you like, but I am sure you are not able to give the same courtesy to my blade.”

For his fortune (or his misfortune) the guard was also among those 17 percent of Hydra personnel, who had performed poorly in the tolerance of pain section when those abilities were measured with the official Zola scale. When Helmut had poked him for a while into the places it was as painful as possible but not life-threatening, Corporal Tonkov was reduced to a sobbing, spluttering mess. He left bloody fingerprints on the control panel and didn’t protest when Helmut cracked an ampoule of a potential sleeping agent under his nose. (He hated breaking necks and didn’t want any more blood on his combat gear. Or… he was thinking Steve. Who would hate they took lives, carelessly, like during the war. Why else wouldn’t Captain America use his guns any more, but knocked villains out with that big Frisbee of his?)

The goddammit door to nowhere had messed Helmut’s time table and he had almost three minutes less time to achieve what he had come here to do. He tapped the code at the door to the hibernation room and stepped quickly inside. This one contained three residents: one woman and two man. Helmut knew easily which one of the chambers belonged to Barnes, in the front of the metal lid there was a round window right on the level of the Sleeping Beauty’s face.

He opened the lid and looked at Barnes, saying to himself it was because he wanted to make sure the Soldier was physically alright. It was mostly that, but he couldn’t help a little comparison when he was at it. Barnes’s hair was quite long, well under his ears. It curled in gently waves around the well-portioned face with strong cheekbones and jawline, and when he opened his eyes, Helmut saw they were that same pleasant chestnut color as his hair. Goddammit those haunted peepers of his and their matching eyebrows! Barnes was a tall man, as tall as Steve and had nice long legs and strong, muscled body which he had owned long before he became a Hydra death puppet. It was no wonder Steve was not been able to forget such a specimen of manly niceness. Barnes had been his first love, and even if that affection had never been returned or even mentioned to its target, it was still the thing writers always told their readers about; by definition Barnes was to Steve forever unforgettable and for Helmut, almost unbeatable. Only way to topple him from the chart of Steve’s most popular, was to do better himself. Helmut had to be a better choice than Barnes, he had to show Steve he could be magnanimous and humble, and able to do the right thing, even if the act was partly (mostly) self-serving one.

It was too bad they were on the clock. Because of that ruckus at the door, Helmut had no time to raise the others beside Barnes. The standard list of words and questions which would activate their minds would last up to two minutes, and those were different for each Soldier. The procedure was well-documented but Helmut had it memorized already years ago, and he had been able to add little something here and there.

He knew Barnes needed only a quick glimpse from his tablet to deduce the best road out of the Hydra bunker. Helmut gave him the rest of his instructions and weapons, the meeting point with a guide who would help him out of the country and back to the States, and then they could already feel the explosions; the mercenaries he had hired to make a distraction were four seconds early.

The room started to fill with a gas. If Helmut hadn’t overrode sensors the door would have locked itself already; now it stood ajar, showing in the screen of the monitor room it was tightly shut.

“Go!” Helmut said. They both had their masks on, with the Soldier it was integrated into his gear. Helmut felt a nausea but he pushed it aside; he had some tolerance for most non-lethal gasses Hydra used. Therefore he was alarmed when the nausea didn’t seem to subside, but was combined with dizziness when he reached the intersection of the main corridor. Barnes had vanished into the darkness, but Helmut was standing still, leaning on the wall and gasping for air.

Oh shit, he realized. He may have tolerance for gases or injections, but how about something you would touch? Something… no wonder those controls had felt sticky, they were coated with chemicals which were activated by the proteins of the human skin. A standard Hydra procedure, which had never been a problem to Commander Zemo who took off his gloves only in a shower. (Not always in there either, there had been days the malfunctioning chastity spell had make it difficult to tolerate any touch, even ones from his own hands.) But the plain old Helmut, this barehanded version of himself...

All right. Maybe he was out of his game. He observed with a mild interest how the ceiling and the floor changed places. The next time they were in their proper locations again, he found himself in a holding cell.

It was not a nice and clean one as he had used to in the SHIELD’s custody. This was a damp, dark, tiny box with no windows or any furniture, only wet cement on the floor, the walls and the ceiling. Helmut rose slowly to the sitting position. The situation lacked only a hovering villain at the doorway, but that he didn’t have to wait for long.

Helmut had arrived to the bunker two days ago after making himself look like a wanted refugee he was. He had been in disguise and scared with suitable haggard looks when he met Commander Aleksandr Vankin under the excuse he had some information of that goddammit traitor, Helmut Zemo.

Sasha had been surprised, to say at least, but he had not been overly suspicious. It had been a stunt an air-head like Helmut could do as his last resort; to promise to do anything in exchange of Sasha’s protection. It had been risky, but he needed a code for hibernation room, and he knew Sasha wasn’t strong-willed when it came to avoiding temptations. He had dreamed about Helmut too long, his actual sexy body and the power he could hold over Red Skull through him… and then Helmut again, as he could feel when he slipped into Sasha’s mind. He felt no actual thoughts, he was not a proper telepath, but the oily residuum of Sasha’s feelings was easy enough to decipher. He was thinking about Helmut, and the prize he would gain after he delivered the traitor to his superiors (he had swore just half an hour ago he would keep Helmut safe) and the chance to get Helmut any way he pleased (Helmut had to say the guy had a boring imagination when it came to sex). Broadcasting his feelings so strong, he left his mind open for Helmut to explore.

In Sasha’s defense, nobody was in his brightest when his brains were sucked out through his dick. And Helmut used that unfair _don’t think about elephants_ -trick as he asked directly where did Sasha keep his codebook. He knew Sasha was too lazy to learn the codes which changed every week in a random day, so he kept them written down somewhere even if it was against the rules. Sasha laughed and moaned when Helmut sucked a little harder and he got a feeling of a warm bread and heat of the oven and a green-colored cabinet with a quaky door.

Helmut couldn’t do to Sasha like he had done to Tony. He didn’t snatch his mind and dump him into his mindplace, because enough power to penetrate the standard shielding of any Hydra officer, would be enough to activate the PSI alarms of the base. So he strangled Sasha until he lost his conscious. (Because killing a guy, even an annoying one, when you have had sex with him a minute ago was a dick move, as the youngsters said nowadays.) He took rest of Sasha’s clothes away and put him into his bed and then injected him with a concoction which should keep him out of commission the next 12 hours. Then he limped to the kitchen. Jerking his cheek and mumbling by himself had always been an efficient way to gain an empty space and that was as true in Berlin metro as it was in a common area of one Hydra bunker. After he started gritting his teeth and petting his side arm even the most tea hungry guards were gone and Helmut could start searching through the kitchen cabinets. A big black-covered notebook was easy to find between the cookbooks (The Barbecue Bible! The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking! 101 cupcakes!) and the codes itself were hidden among the housekeeping calculations, which was smart, actually.

That had been the easy part. Sasha standing over him at the doorway was delivering the difficult part, or just blustering, Helmut wouldn’t know, that fast attached helmet in his head was a Hydra’s version of personal PSI-dampeners.

“Always full of surprises, you are”, Sasha said. After his gesture, the guard pushed the remote control, and Helmut felt a short sting somewhere inside his cerebral cortex.

Sasha took a step back as gaining momentum before he spat Helmut into his face. Helmut gave him a hurt look with his best puppy eyes.

“ _B_ _o_ _z_ _e moi_ ”, Sasha muttered. “You are good.”

“Please, Sasha, don’t flatter yourself. That is not pretty. Why don’t you think instead what interesting things I will say about you when interrogated.”

Helmut let his lips turn into a sneering smile, which was so different from his former simpering body language to Sasha it had to look like Helmut was possessed by an evil spirit.

“No. There is nothing you can prove. You try to get me kill you. You will not play me like you did for your cousin Andrea.”

“What if I already did”, Helmut smirked. “Or maybe they don’t care. I wasn’t too greedy, was I? I left them with two of their precious Winter Soldiers.”

The pure desperation in Sasha’s demeanor, Helmut didn’t need his emphatic powers to see that.

“Nothing happened.” Sasha was in denial. “We will re-capture him.”

“No you will not.”

Sasha slapped him. “High Commander will kill you slowly. General Paustovsky is right there talking with him, asking for permission to broadcast to the world how you scream and piss yourself. I hope Captain America’s dick was worth it.”

“Like my dick was to you, you mean.”

Sasha hissed like a cat in a puddle and hit him again with his palm. They had indeed told him they needed Helmut unharmed.

“Let’s be honest here”, he laughed at Sasha’s furious face. “You have always been a lecherous idiot. Maybe they let new recruits to break you. For a man like you it would be like winning a year’s worth of cock. Maybe they invent new holes, just for you.”

That idea made Sasha finally crack. He took his pistol and shot Helmut into the stomach. Such a deja vu. He would have liked to howl in laughter at Sasha’s horrified expression when his former colleague realized what he had done, but the pain was too much. Even keeping his head up started to hurt and Helmut let himself crumble on the floor. From this point of view he saw combat boots coming closer and halting next to Sasha, Hydra soldiers twisting a gun from his hand.

“High Council is waiting”, a new voice told them. “You two, carry the traitor. Commander Vankin...”

“General, I didn’t mean… it was an accident...”

They lifted him and then there was a shot and he waited for more pain. But nothing more happened than Sasha’s explanations suddenly halted.

Helmut fainted a little. When he came around again, he was in a dark hall full of computer screens.

“Unfortunately he was wounded when tried to escape”, General Paustovsky was saying towards the main screen. “He is badly hurt, my estimation is he will not be able to endure an interrogation and the traditional punishment for his crimes if we will not get him into the sickbay immediately.”

“No”, the familiar raspy voice spoke through the speakers. “He will be able to escape for real this time. Or some SHIELD scums have time to plot a rescue operation. He is in our hands right now. We are not taking any chances.”

From Helmut’s frog view the General looked shocked by those strange orders. “But High Commander, what about the tradition? Seven days and seven nights of unspeakable torture? Our supporters or our troops will think we are starting to mellow if we are seen pitying traitors.”

“Pity”, Red Skull said slowly. “Do you think this has something to do with those childish feelings? Yes, I have heard those talks. How I am presumably growing soft and sentimental because of my age.”

The sentence was followed by a laugh which wouldn’t have been out of place in any Halloween party tape. Or in mental hospital ward. “No, General Paustovsky. I am proud to say my son is too dangerous to be left alive a minute more than necessary.”

There were surprised gasps of air. Helmut heard through the speakers how the participants moved restlessly in their safe houses in the secret locations around the world. The most cunning of them were already plotting how to use this new information for their own benefit.

“General, raise his head. Make him look at me.”

His shoulders were grabbed. General lifted and turned him enough that he was now facing his father. Red Skull didn’t look especially angry, nor was he sad or surprised. It was like Helmut had done something the old maniac had expected him to do long time ago; leaving home, cutting his ties with their unhappy little Nazi family.

“My most trusted ally. The brightest of your generation. My undying soldier son, dedicated to our great cause. I blame myself for not listening more closely to your doubts and your ideas. Supremacy, not through feeble constructions like race, but through brilliance of each individual’s mind. That was an idea I mostly regret not to let you pursue.”

There was indeed no sentimentality behind those words. Just stating the facts. Helmut was able to see the surprised, thoughtful, and scheming expressions of the High Council members before General let him slide back on the floor.

“General Paustovsky, please proceed.”

Helmut felt a short burst of panic, which was followed by relief. He was going to die, nothing new there, only that there would be no resurrection. Maybe he was with Steve in this one, it had been against the natural order of things, but not any more; uncle Arnim had destroyed his clone bodies and those biomagical copies of his mind. He had never learned how they actually worked, and why they didn’t work with anybody else than him. ( _It is_ _that_ _magic_ _part of things_ , he heard his godfather’s voice. _There is no_ _scientific_ _logic in magic. It’s_ _incomputable._ _You from all people should know that_ ).

No resurrection meant Steve didn’t have to be ashamed of the bond he shared with him. Steve would be free.

No, Helmut realized as the last coherent thought raised into his mind. Not into the face, he wanted to ask. He didn’t want Steve to see him like that.

The pain exploded inside his chest. It was like his heart had been clipped into half, and that it was doing; two bullets into the chest, one bullet into the head. That was the basics of an execution, to make sure a target was certainly dead. With his last resort he turned his head sideways, his face away from the barrel, before the third bullet penetrated his skull above the left ear.

*

_Steve, Zemo was not the only one,_ Natasha had tried to explain after Tony’s little temper tantrum in the SHIELD base. _I knew too_ _and reported to Fury about your connection to the one of the_ _Winter_ _S_ _oldier_ _s_ _…_ _James_ _Barnes_ _is_ _a legend among my kind, and I was_ _then_ _thrilled_ _to have him as my_ _instructor_ _. But_ _S_ _teve, you have to understand. He ha_ _s_ _been emp_ _t_ _ied from his memories dozens of times._ _Even his body is bioengineered and his_ _artificial_ _arm is as lethal weapon as your shield._ _He is_ _an_ _unstoppable killing machine_ _of_ _H_ _ydra making. There is nothing left of_ _B_ _ucky you kn_ _e_ _w._ _Nothing but his face._

_Maybe so, but I would have appreciated to have a chance to notice that myself._

All the sudden Nat looked sad and a little apprehensive. Steve felt his jaw tighten. He was so tired of these emotional games where you could never know was the feeling you saw real or not.

_Everyone_ _who_ _notices him_ _is_ _dead, Steve._ _Please, be careful with Zemo. With you and Tony on his case, he may choose to do something drastic._

_More so than to plan the murder of Tony’s parents? Got it._ Steve flailed his sarcasm like a lethal weapon. _We are talking about a man who keeps the date of the Ascq Massacre as his door code. Yeah, I noticed that one. A fucking Rottenführer in SS-Panzerdivision with his fucking blood group tattoo and twisted honor code. You saw what his mind looked like. Did he look like a good guy to you?_

Afterwards Steve thought that had been a silly question. But he didn’t want to be fair, he wanted to flash out, and that was easy when Nat rose to the bait, trying to speak some sense to him.

_I think I saw glimpses of somebody doing penance the hardest way. With his deeds, not with his words._

_You hope somebody_ _would_ _forgive him,_ Steve sneered at her. _Then you could feel somebody could forgive you too. But guess what, Nat. There are some things that are unforgivable._

_Maybe so. Hopefully you don’t have to deal with them_ _yourself_ _._ _Remember what I said about Zemo. You don’t want another one to regret to_ , Nat said, still more sad than angry. Maybe it had been a real feeling but you never knew with Natasha, who had too many masks.

\--

Prophetic words. When Fury’s call came, Steve felt like he had tried to climb ass first to the tree, not realizing there were easier positions to try.

“Steve. Son”, Fury said. “I am afraid I bring the gravest news.”

He indeed did. Steve remembered that look from the time the doctor had informed him about his mother’s illness. It was the same grim but compassionate visage he himself sported if he had to utter to somebody his friend or relative had died as a hero. It was a sorry-I-can’t-really-do-anything-to-ease-your-pain -look, which always made a cold stone to drop into the bottom of his stomach.

If Tony had gotten a fit of crazy and jumped from the roof top or choked with his own vomit, Steve would have heard about it from the news. So he wasn’t overly surprised Fury’s message was about Helmut. Not surprised, but…

Steve didn’t know. Nothing particular yet, but maybe later. He took a brief gasp of breath and asked Fury what happened.

“We don’t know. All we got is he was sent to our liaison office in London.”

“Sent… what do you mean?”

“As a package. He...”

“He was ripe then”, Steve completed a macabre sentence, when Fury seemed to be lost with his words. “What happened? Did they opened the box and it blow up?”

“No, and that was it”, Fury tried to explain. “No bombs, no toxins, nothing biological or mechanical which could be used to hurt or spy on us, only a state of art cooling system. Furthermore, he was dressed in his Hydra uniform, his buttons and commander insignia removed.”

They had cashiered Helmut. Had they done it in front of their troops? Knocked his cap away, torn his medals off and dashed them on the ground? Have they broken his sword, before they executed him? They had executed him, hopefully? Not tortured him to death?

“Yes, actually. Only bullet wounds and even those were sewed and covered afterwards. Steve, we are bringing him home this week.”

That was logical. They could hardly leave him in some morgue in London. But what a home actually meant, Steve wondered. Was it Germany? Steve didn’t think Helmut had liked the good old USA that much.

“He has no relatives who would want to have anything to do with a terrorist leader and a white supremacist. How do you like us to proceed?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Or did you think we will ask Red Skull? He is probably behind this display.”

“But I have no time to do anything”, Steve protested. Fury should know that. Steve had almost eight weeks left of his first term. They were still focusing on basic military skills, fitness, and decision making. 

“Never mind that, Steve. We can make all the practical arrangements for the funeral. A small private thing, perhaps. You naturally want the Avengers with you.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to bother them. They all have their own pursuits. I myself hardly knew the man and for them Helmut was nothing much but the leader of the Masters of Evil.”

Last week Steve had gotten a confused call from Tony, who had started his rehab again, this time in some fancy faculty for celebrities. The Avengers was one man’s dream. A feeble construction which could have tumbled down any moment and now was that moment. Steve was in England and Clint with the Thunderbolts, Natasha on a mission and Tony on sick leave. Janet’s mother had had a minor cardiac arrest, so Janet’s time was fully occupied as she was organizing things as the CEO of their family business. That left only Sam and Thor. The latter had returned to Asgard when he realized his comrades in arms were actually a two-man team.

Fury was giving him an odd look. Like then when they met the first time. When Steve had called him a Negro and asked if Fury was there to arrest him. Like Steve had wiped a rug from under his feet by being something Fury would have never expected him to be.

Nothing much to say after that. Steve didn’t ask what Fury was going to do, if there were indeed a funeral or if he cremated the body and got rid of the ashes. Maybe let wind have them that Helmut’s grave wouldn’t be desecrated by his former Hydra colleagues.

The next morning Steve waited to wake up feeling somewhat different. But the day continued as usual, the sky was not falling, if you didn’t count that darn rain. There were training, theory classes, exercises, talking and joking at the canteen with his fellow trainees. Steve had his antennas out to notice any changes, but the empty feeling or sorrow he had expected didn’t come. Maybe Steve had moved on, like people said nowadays. What had been between Steve and Helmut had been convenient, but in the end nothing important, and even their bond knew that.

Maybe he was indeed an abomination. He and his peers had been taught by various religious and moral authorities the sex without reproduction was wrong, but somewhat tolerable if the couple doing it was married; then it was considered as an act of love and affection. Everything else was just debauchery, and in Steve’s case a crime against the laws of the civilized society and God himself. But never mind, people nowadays had a better name for that also. It was friends with benefits, even if Steve and Helmut had not been actual friends. More like wounded together.

His room in the school was nothing like a fancy place in Tony’s family mansion. It was not much larger than a standard SHIELD cell, and a lot shabbier. It barely contained a single bed, a small table, a closet for his clothes and a bookcase for his other things.

The room felt full when he was sitting on his bed. Even more full it felt when he was lying down in that same bed, and a guy as tall and wide as himself was standing besides him.

Steve felt an unfamiliar presence before he consciously knew about it, and that gave him some time to think how to react. He waited for a half a minute, but the man stood there doing nothing threatening, and Steve sit up and turned his reading light on. For a long while he could only stare at the man’s face, because even if his hair was long and his cheeks were gaunt, that was James Buchanan Barnes standing besides the head of his bed, as if they were still home in his mother’s rental flat. Bucky waiting for his asthma attack to cease, waiting if Steve would live another night.

Maybe it was a dream. How did the Winter Soldier come through a locked door without awaking Steve? Or maybe that was a stupid question.

“Did Helmut sent you to kill me?” Steve asked, when Bucky continued his performance of a living statue. “That was his final gift for me? To get me out of this time? Or is this his revenge? For spoiling his big plans by rejecting him?”

Gravely voice reminded him about Helmut’s Guardian. “Mission parameters: find Rogers, Steven Grant. Confirmed. Ready for the more detailed mission report.”

“At ease, sergeant”, Steve was able to say before the feeling closed his throat and he had to swallow a few time to get some grip of himself. That walking corpse, who talked like a badly programmed computer, was a cruel mockery of everything what Bucky had been in his life.

Helmut and Natasha had been right. His friend had died a long time ago and if Steve had accepted that as a fact, Helmut would be alive because it was no way the idiot would have taken alone a quest worth of Captain America and his Commandos. A quest which was begging Steve’s forgiveness. Nothing to forgive, anybody who needed Helmut’s apology was long gone, and Steve was the last person on earth to make demands on the man he had now killed twice.

Nothing much to do than call Fury and make him aware of the situation. They make quick arrangements, and Fury was sending a team to collect the Hydra assassin. Steve could come with them if he wanted, or stay if he was busy with his studies. It was an actual question, Steve saw, Fury was not using sarcasm or needling him. “Yes, I would like to come with him, if that is alright”, Steve admitted. “I haven’t…”

How hard it was to ask what Fury had done with Helmut’s body? Very hard, Steve noticed, but fortunately Fury guessed easily what he was trying to say.

“He is waiting, Steve. All is arranged, and our medical team will be ready for Bucky. It is better sedate him during the trip, so you can meet them both after you arrive.”

It went indeed smoothly and some fourteen hours later Steve was standing in white-walled room in the SHIELD medical wing. The room temperature was noticeably lower than in the other parts of the base, and it seemed to be a common practice, this room was not arranged just for Helmut’s benefit; being an agent of SHIELD could be a risky profession, and sometimes people died. After their bodies were searched by the medical staff to confirm the cause of death and to make sure they were not carrying anything dangerous, they were brought here to be shown to their friends or relatives.

Helmut was lying inside a metal coffin. He had been changed into the nice looking dark blue uniform which kind Steve hadn’t seen before. There was a lightly darker area around his temple where the bullet had pierced the skull, but Steve could see it just because he knew what to look; somebody had made magnificent job with the body. Made no mistake; Helmut looked dead, not like sleeping, as people liked to say. Steve had slept besides him so many times the difference was easy to deduce. It still felt like a trick. Why didn’t he feel any different? There was no living body any more, but Helmut’s presence inside him was the same.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring. Waiting again the empty misery, which refused to come. He felt benumbed instead watching that immovable handsome face which would never smirk again. The pale lids hid the clear water-colored eyes which had gazed at him with such an adoration when Helmut thought he didn’t notice. Steve had thought it was Helmut fantasizing about all the power he would gain through their connection, but what if those looks had been only for Steve? What then? What if he had wasted all that feeling he was never going to get back?

The tingling started inside him, like when leg went numb and feeling started returning. Before Steve knew it he was angry. He compressed the side of the coffin with his fingers so hard it was probably leaving some marks.

“You fucking idiot. What have you done.”

He didn’t know if he was talking to himself or to Helmut. His mind was filling with the pictures and feelings. They were on the poppy field for the first time, a thrill of adventure going through Steve’s thoughts. Then Helmut like a kicked dog on the dirt road in Normandy. The same man laughing and teasing him at the breakfast table in the Avenger mansion.

“Steve”, Fury’s voice was calling him. “Steve, it had been almost three hours. Is everything alright?”

Nothing was ever going to be alright, he wanted to answer. But that was a gentle lady talk, not a sentence a man could utter and still look at himself in the mirror afterwards.

“I am fine, Director”, he said and heard Fury sighing. Better to chance the subject. “You dressed him as an agent.”

“Yes, he was an officer among us too, even if he didn’t like much about the fact. In case you were wondering what those insignias in his parade uniform meant.”

Steve had to smile at that. “He would be so pissed off if he saw himself now.”

“Yes, I realize. But his old Hydra greens were hardly appropriate.”

“I didn’t mean Hydra. When we were in his mindplace he always manifested in his old uniform.”

That had been German field grey with SS insignia. No wonder Fury didn’t look happy when he realized what Steve was suggesting.

“He has a blood group tattoo”, Steve reminded him. “Is it more appropriate when hidden in his armpit?”

“Yes, he has that, hasn’t he. I will ask Sanders to find a proper outfit. In some way, this is a veteran funeral. But no Nazi songs or gestures. I can’t even imagine a shitstorm if somebody catches that kind of performance in the video.”

Why did Fury think Steve would tolerate any outplays of that variety? Why would Helmut who had grown to hate Nazism and Hydra? If Steve could decide, they were in some private, secluded place anyway. That would be safer for everybody, if his plan would be a success.

“One thing, could you contact Thor for me?”

“All the Avengers if you like.”

“Yes, well. If they want to come. But I want to ask Thor a favor.”

He turned his back to Fury to gaze at his shieldmate again. Helmut Zemo was a warrior. He had to ride to Valhalla with style.

He felt Fury’s hand on his shoulder. Then Director left, and Steve was again alone with his thoughts. In this room there were no windows or mirrors to cover, no concrete tasks Steve could do for Helmut. The body’s hands seemed empty, and he thought briefly should he put his mother’s old rosary between his fingers. But Helmut had been a Lutheran. Maybe it would not be appreciated.

If the Avengers were there, they could have a proper wake. After viewing the body they would celebrate Helmut’s life by drinking and eating a plenty of food and sharing amusing stories about him. That was a habit Thor would find familiar.

Steve continued his lonely vigil over the night. At some time an agent he wasn’t familiar with came and brought him something to eat. There were beer and sandwiches, a container full of jelly and even a huge piece of red meat. Steve smiled to himself; poor Fury was afraid Steve would starve himself to death like a pale Victorian maiden, grieving beside his lover’s coffin.

It took only a day for the Avengers to be ready to assemble. Thor made a solemn face after Steve’s request and said he would be honored to be in their service. “Did you hear that Helmut”, Steve whispered under his breath, because it was a private joke, and those were always quirky. “Your father’s _God_ is honored to serve your family.”

The meadow Fury had chosen was a remote place some two hours drive away from the City. As Steve had requested, there was a pyre made of wood and stones on which Helmut was lifted from his coffin. Janet had brought flowers, a gorgeous and probably expensive wreath with white lilies and many other plants Steve had no means to recognize. He was thinking again the poppy field, how those humble flowers would have been more suitable… but that would have been ungrateful, so he thanked Janet and realized while doing that, he was acting less like a team leader and more like a widow. As Sam had said while shaking Steve’s hand, they were not equal in their sorrow. Maybe he should accept that as a fact.

Then there were speeches. Everybody seemed to have something to say, even Clint who managed to squeeze a dirty joke in there somewhere. Janet was crying during Steve’s speech and he wondered afterwards maybe it was partly because the speech had been so lousy. He had been surprised Tony insisted coming, and ended up feeling bad Tony had been dragged out of his rehab. He rambled something about how Helmut hadn’t been an exemplary man, but sometimes you got shitty cards in life and had to make the best you can with them, and honestly, anybody couldn’t say Helmut hadn’t tried.

What Steve meant… Red Skull as a dad? Heinrich Zemo as a father and Arnim Zola as a godfather? Steve didn’t know what kind of woman Helmut’s mother had been, but probably not a bleeding heart liberal daisy. He talked about redemption and how even Apostle had given a good advice to not just talk about nice things but act accordingly. Nat wasn’t crying, but her right eye seemed somewhat shiny after those lines and he remembered all the nasty words he had said to her about how some things were unforgivable. Did he really think that himself? Where should the line be then? How many dead persons you could have in your conscious before somebody said no more, this is unpardonable? Did it matter how those people had died, slow or fast, by a terrible torture or in some painless way?

“Make no mistake”, Steve noticed he was saying, “Helmut Zemo was not a fan of democracy, equality, or liberty. He was a haughty son of a bitch who had sucked his superiority from his mother’s tit, but he at least understood those concepts we have built our great nation on are the lesser evils in a world in which ideals so hardly work. Let’s look at the communism, for example. When I was younger…”

If his teammates had waited something sappy or elevated, they were in for a disappointment. The atmosphere loosened, though, and finally no one was looking as if expecting him to fall on the ground at any minute.

“Steve”, Tony said thoughtfully after Steve had said his piece. “You have layers like an onion. You stopped my exploitative, capitalistic heart. You are both so versatile, sorry, I mean bendy, shit, you know what I mean. You are what need to be without any labels, just doing what needs to be done. That alone would be admirable.”

That had been a good description of Helmut’s life. Steve had been the last one to say his goodbyes. The speech and then a song, which had made Janet and also Clint weep openly. He waited for a moment, but his teammates seemed reluctant to step nearer the body. Maybe it was the Nazi uniform, or more likely they didn’t want to touch a dead person, it was probably not a custom any more. Steve and Helmut had lived in more morbid times, when death wasn’t so sterile and hidden. Sam gasped as Steve stepped beside the pyre, as it was going to be, and kissed Helmut on the forehead. The motion seemed somewhat inadequate, and he stood a moment still before he bent down and touched Helmut’s mouth lightly with his lips. When he turned around, Tony and Sam were a bit green around the gills. The others were more stoic about the scene, but they didn’t show any willingness to come and repeat Steve’s gesture.

“Alright Thor”, Steve said after he assumed was an appropriate time. “If you go on, we will give you space.”

While Steve was speaking, the sky above them had hidden itself behind dark clouds. They stepped more hastily, even if Thor could easily control the ground current, so there was no real danger. The tiny hill was as good an observation place as any, and Steve halted, turning his face to the sky where tiny lightnings were playing. Thor was pointing his hammer to the clouds. The flash of lighting was now so bright it made Steve’s eyes water, and when the bolt hit the pyre, it didn’t only consume the body, but it also threw away the top layer of the stones, which were at least fifty pounds each. Thor looked at him sheepishly, as if expecting reproach, but Steve didn’t find anything to complain about. It had been a grandiose display; well worth of a man who had chosen a purple head sock and ermine-trimmed shoulder pads for his supervillain costume.


	17. The Things You Find in Cellar Labs (And Fifty Points from Slytherin)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Fury are dealing with resistance to change from the opposite point of views.

Steve heard over the roar of his motorcycle how Janet and Fury were arguing on the comm. “How about Fantastic Four”, Janet was saying. “The Baxter Building is almost around the block, and in their flying bathtub they would be there in a few minutes.”

“It would be a miracle if those guys are on earth.” Steve didn’t know the superfamily that well, but the little he had heard of them argued Fury had made a valid point. “As you know, they are more scientists and explorers than superheroes. And don’t even think about suggesting X-men. It is the Serpent Society, and X-men handle only mutant related threats.”

“Asp is a mutant”, Sam’s voice said unhelpfully. “But I agree with Janet, aren’t animal themed robbers usually Spider-Man’s turf? When Thor gets there, it’s like blasting a mosquito with a cannon, isn’t it?”

“Are you saying you are too posh for this mission? Or are you scared of a bunch of snakes? Even better, you are afraid to lose to them? With that attitude it is not a hardship. Agent Sanders, ten bucks says today is the day our team is going to get their ass kicked.”

“Nicholas, it it bad form to bet against your own creation.”

“It was eighties and I regret a lot… don’t let you be one of those things.”

“Alright, deal”, Janet said calmly. “Cap, I am getting out of the Taxi, the police blockade will jam the traffic anyway, so I have to fly. I am coming along the 7th Avenue from the direction of Central Park.”

Steve heard a weird screeching sound as Janet’s comm changed size with her. (The sound drove Tony up the wall, but when he would have time to fix that thing, he always forgot.) “Cap, I start to see something… at the corner of the 50th Street. Where are you guys?”

“Right here, five o’clock from that steak place we went after that incident with Count Nefaria”, Steve explained, abandoning his bike and starting to run toward the chaos. “Falcon, do we have eyes in the air yet? Which ones are there?”

“I see Diamondback”, Sam confirmed. “And that mutant lady I talked earlier. Wow, Bushmaster… and Cottonmouth too. How come bad guys have such an equal quota of gender and race when we are...”

“I can see you”, Natasha’s voice interrupted Sam’s musings. “ETA one minute, coming by foot from South.”

“You have been at Hershey’s again. No wonder your ass stays as big as it is.” The adrenaline rushed inside Steve like a tidal wave and his potty mouth was taking the better of him again. “Fuck! Can’t you move it any faster? Here is one lady in pink waiting for your attention.”

Diamondback had no powers, but she had some close combat skills and she was keen at throwing small, diamond-shaped projectiles, which contained nasty tricks; gasses, poisons, smoke or explosives. At least Steve could be sure Natasha would not underestimate the woman unlike Sam who was diving down before Steve had time to shout a warning. Cottonmouth moved smoothly like his namesake and hopped into the air, snatched the tip of Sam’s left wing, and by that single move incapacitated their only air support. The guy was a like terrier, his enhanced jaw and neck muscles would able him to keep his hold for a long time, and by changing his position lightly he could bite Sam’s leg right off with those metal teeth of his. Fortunately, Janet was already there and shot one of her electrical force bursts into the guy’s face. He opened his mouth and let Sam go and Janet stung him again, but Asp was now attacking to help her cold-blooded comrade, and the ladies were soon engaged in a good, old-fashioned duel.

 _A r_ _egular day in the office_ , Steve thought and let his shield fly, but this time it didn’t bounce from the wall (and to Cottonmouth’s head.) The shield seemed to be stuck inside the bricks, and then Bushmaster was all over him. Steve knew his adversary wasn’t born that way, he was not a mutant, but bioengineered like Cottonmouth. Instead of jaw, he had bionic arms with their needle-sharp, six inch fangs pushing from the back of his hands. The most impressive sight was his feet, though, or the lack of them. Bushmaster sported a tail, which gave him enhanced speed and strength, and made him a giant snake with a human torso and head. He looked like some Ancient wonder Steve had read about; Echidna, the mother of the monsters, who Hesiod described to be half beautiful maiden and half fearsome snake. Bushmaster was a handsome man, so he fitted the depiction, but Steve was indeed more worried about his other end, and those nasty hand-fangs he used, trying to pin Steve as if he were a dead butterfly. The tail end seemed more harmless and Steve sprung over, grabbing the damn thing, but it was covered with some slippery metal, He really had to take a good grip and yank.

There was a horrible  ripping sound and  then Bushmaster was leaking blue, bad-smelling flui d  and  screaming like he was dying,  when the artificial limb send into his brain feedback which was full of real pain . Steve stood frozen,  staring at his hand s in which the biomechanical tail jerked before lying still and dead, like a tail of those lizards which dropped their body part to escape predatory birds. 

“Fuck oh goddammit”, Steve was able to utter before Asp’s venom bolt hit him. The lady was not holding back as she had done with Janet, who was lying on the ground, temporarily incapacitated, but alive and hurting. This hit was meant to kill, and Steve gritted his teeth as Asp let go every drop of the energy her body had been able to gather. 

“Die!” she screamed. “Die you flag-drag bastard, why don’t you die!”

“Is that all you got, you fucking cunt”, Steve hollered, because, God, it felt awful, as if touching a dozen live wires. “It tickles my nether regions nicely, why don’t you go on your fucking knees and found out how...” (Yes, why doesn’t she go on her knees and thin the carrots in her mother’s vegetable garden, yes, thanks Steve, thank you very much about that homely image!) Steve was royally pissed off, and he had learned he shouldn’t be a gentleman in the situations like this (it would be against the equality), so he shouted a few more expletives while he knocked the lady unconscious with the help of her teammate’s tail. 

“Little help here, please!”

It was Sam, who was about to get munched by the jaw guy. Steve had no time to get worried about the wet sounds the Cottonmouth made as his knuckles connected into the guy’s breastbone, it was soon obvious Sam hadn’t seen the fifth member of these Slytherins. There was now a woman who was wearing a silly snake-shaped head adornment and so tight and generous bodysuit it made Janet’s skimpy costumes seem fit for a nun. Maybe Steve should rip off those few stitches keeping the thing together and see what would happen.

“Cap, it’s Black Mamba!” Natasha’s voice filled the comm line. “Back off quickly! She can…”

Steve wasn’t able to hear what the woman in front of him could do.  He  felt as he  had been droppe d head first into the world’s fluffiest pillow. Everything was so mellow and soft and Steve turned  himself  around,  snuggling . And there in  the  bed besides him was Helmut. He  was wearing  his f u nny ermine-lined  shoulder pads and purple  head  sock,  which he pulled away and just kissed, kissed Steve like there were no tomorrow,  holding him tighter and tighter.. .

It was so wonderful, and that made Steve realize nothing about it was true. It was nineteen days after his shieldmate’s funeral. Helmut was dead, and Steve lay alone in his huge bed in the Avengers mansion, staring at the shadows in the ceiling and waiting sleep which would most nights elude him. Helmut was dead, and that damn trollop who had to have same kind of brain smuggling power Helmut himself had managed, was making a mockery of Steve and what had been between him and his beloved. 

You heard right. He had called Helmut his beloved. Too little and too late, but that was life for you; unsatisfactory and hard with a little droplets of joy or hope around the edges. Suddenly he could see inky black shadows all around him and realized it had to be the Darkforce energy Black Mamba was able to manipulate. She was used to use it as a lure and also as a means to kill her adversaries. 

She had showed him hers, so it was only fair that Steve would show her his. Something rose inside him, something dark and horrible which made those tangible shadows look as thick as wisps of cigarette smoke. There was a scream, pure and simple and primal, an original wail of death the professional mourners of the old times tried to emulate in the funerals, and it hit Black Mamba with the force of a mental hurricane. Steve shouted out all the sorrow, all the disappointment which was weighting his heart, wailing like the banshees in his mother’s old stories, when he had been a kid and easy to entertain or scare.

It had been the loudest sound in the world. It had been as silent as a whisper. Anyway, when Steve’s mental shout ended, Black Mamba was lying on the ground, bleeding blood from her ears and nose.

“Steve, are you alright? I was too far, I couldn’t...”

Steve understood the double meaning of Natasha’s halted sentence. She couldn’t shoot Black Mamba, not in front of all these police officers and onlookers. The Avengers were supposed to be the good guys. This was not a war, this was kiddies playing dress-up and huffing and puffing until somebody got hurt. _Sometimes them, sometimes us_ , Steve thought. The nasty stuff, that had been Helmut’s specialty and it happened somewhere else, in a real world.

“I am fine”, Steve shrugged. Only cut and bruises, for all of them. That was it, the skirmish had ended. Their adversaries were unconscious or in their way to the scuffs or like Bushmaster, sedated and tied on the special trolley which was right now pushed into the SHIELD van. Black Mamba was waking up, and Steve stepped forward, even if he guessed she was in no condition for the second round. 

“Zemo”, the woman mumbled, slowly opening her eyes. “That was Baron Zemo, the leader of the Masters of Evil. But… how? It was supposed… You were supposed to see your loved one...”

Her voice shook with a genuine  disappointment.  Maybe she too had had a poster of Captain on her wall as a kid,  and now  it was as if an older sibling had told  her there was no Santa, only  their dad in a red jacket and  a  false beard.

“What?” Steve wondered. “What are you suggesting? That I am a Hydra Supreme and in a league with Baron Zemo? That Hydra has established a Secret Empire and we will rule there happily ever after as the axis of evil? Our new PSI dampeners messed you up really good, little lady.”

“What damp…” Sam started, when Janet accidentally stepped on his foot. It was not needed, Black Mamba had lost her conscience again. Steve had time to look around for his shield. The wall… of course! There was a glimpse of red and white, but before he was able to leave towards it, Natasha took hold of his elbow.

“Cap, wait a second. Did you notice that you hit Cottonmouth awfully hard? He broke three of his ribs. One of those went through his left lung.”

“Good”, Sam said, holding his arms like wondering he still had two of them. Cottonmouth could grind bricks with those jaws of his.

“Easy, Steve”, Natasha mumbled. Steve gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and left to pick up his possession. There were some kids, who had sneaked around the police line when situation seemed to be over, and they had reached his shield, poking at it and trying to pull it from the wall. An impossible task for a regular teen when even he had to yank the shield patiently from side to side until the bricks gave up their loot. 

“Holy shit, how much power do you have? That was a neat fucking toss!”

That had come from an eager blonde haired boy… or maybe she was a girl, it was sometimes hard to tell when they were dressed on those baggy hoodies and jeans. 

“Watch your mouth, kid.”

The whole lot snickered. Yeah, that had been hypocrisy. There were camera phones, and as always Steve was not sure what he had hollered out in his adrenaline rush, but probably nothing PG again. He was about to say something proper and grandpa-proved anyway, when he felt a funny electric scent. It made the hairs of his arms trying to stand up under his uniform shirt, and Steve wasn’t surprised to see Thor landing near Janet and Sam.

“Sorry, my friend”, Steve said, jogging towards them. “This was a really short one.”

Thor didn’t look overly disappointed. He flew before them to the SHIELD compound, in where Fury was expecting them for the debriefing.

“I think we have a problem”, Natasha said after everyone had given a short report from the incident. “It’s not about Cottonmouth or Bushmaster”, she hurried to say as Steve tried to open his mouth to explain. “I know you haven’t fought them before, and those overkills could be explained by your unfamiliarity with engineered supervillains, you obviously thought they would have been built sturdier. I am more worried about how you managed against Black Mamba.”

As he had told his team and Fury. He realized it was a hoax and pulled himself away from the Darkforce.

“Yes, I understood that part”, Natasha said. “Other people had managed to do that to her, it is an act of will… but I didn’t mean that. I don’t think it was purely you winning that fight”, Natasha said and now her eyes were looking at him so full of sympathy it was unbearable. “Steve, I am pretty sure I saw someone else rushing against her shadows, and it looked very much like the Guardian.”

What! But it couldn’t be. Helmut was dead.

“It was only a flash, a few seconds, but it looked very much like him. Z was a psychic and an empath, untrained but very powerful... Could it be something of him still exist and manifest through you because of your bond? Maybe if you try you could consciously feel the connection?”

Steve took a quick glimpse around the table. His teammates seemed to find Nat’s deductions both disturbing and intriguing. Over all, it made lot of sense. Steve had felt Helmut inside him like an echo this whole time. It was hard to mourn his loss, when it felt like a person was not really gone. That could be it. A little part of Helmut’s powers transferred into him. 

“That is easy to find out”, Janet argued. “Let’s go to the gym and test you. With a loaded bar, mind you. That way nobody will get hurt if you can’t control your new strength.”

Nothing else left to do than try it. It was kind of huge disappointment for everybody, though. Steve couldn’t deadlift more weight than in his previous sessions, and his shield ricocheted from the wall as usual . Thor  made him do it a few extra times.  H e had hoped to get a  more equal  sparring partner. And  then there was  the most important point, made by Janet: if Steve’s extra power came and went  mostly  uncontrollably , how could he ever learn to manage it in a real combat situation? Somebody could get hurt, maybe Steve himself.  Or more hurt.  When they were driving home,  Steve t hought  about B ushmaster and  C ottonmouth .  They would spend we eks in hospital,  and Steve could be lucky he hadn’t killed the m .

“Do you care some more, Mr. Rogers?” Jarvis asked when Steve came to the kitchen with their used plates. He knew about Steve’s metabolism and was constantly worried he didn’t eat enough. “We got some new fruits. I will make you a plate you can take with you.”

He  didn’t have Bucky to look after his health  any more , but this was  the next  best  thing. Steve was aware Tony knew how lucky he was. 

Jarvis was almost finished when Steve appeared again, this time his hands full of dirty glasses. He put them besides the cutlery Nat had left into the sink. Nobody else than Jarvis himself arranged the dishwasher or the fridge in a right way. Sam was just now lifting a bowl of the leftover dessert onto the self, but froze under Jarvis’s disapproving stare and put it quickly down on the side table, then loped out of the kitchen. 

“Here we go”, Jarvis said, handing Steve a full plate. There were some fruits he didn’t recognize, but that was hardly surprising. “And how was Mr. Barnes today?”

First Steve had been angry about Jarvis’s persistent questions, but during the days after the funeral he had realized Jarvis was genially concerned about both of them.

“He was mostly the same”, Steve had to admit. “Marigold Jones is doing great job by unraveling the Hydra conditioning, but it is artisan work, very slow. She said he asked for more smashed apples today.”

“That is progress”, Jarvis admitted carefully. 

It really was.  Bucky had been brainwashed again and again, until  he was  like  a flesh doll without any personality or initiative  besides his mission parameters . If left to his own devices, he would sit in his cell and stare at  the  wall while pissing his pants and starving  slowly to death.  After Ms. Jones had been able to hack some of  the mind locks of Hydra making,  Bucky had gotten a bit more active. Asking after some food was  a  big deal for a guy, who had the last seventy years got ten his nourishment mainly in a liquid form through the tube. 

Steve didn’t deserve any of this. He didn’t deserve this nice room which had started to feel more and more like home. He didn’t feel worthy of Jarvis’s worry or Tony’s friendship or his beloved Helmut, who had made an ultimate sacrifice to get Bucky back to him. Even if Fury hadn’t heard anything from his spies, it was obvious who had ordered Bucky to find Steve Rogers, the time of Helmut’s death was too close to be a coincide. 

“Idiot”, Steve sighed. The ceiling didn’t answer him, it hadn’t done that any previous times. A part of the shadows seemed to reach towards the bed, and first Steve thought it was the light shining from the gab of the curtains, making shadows move. But no, it was too human-like shape, which was quickly turning into a solid looking presence. 

Steve lay still and observed. Somehow he knew the presence was not hostile, and then he saw why his gut was telling him the truth. It seemed Natasha had been right. She usually was. It was Helmut’s Guardian.

“Hi”, Steve said. The Wraith tilted its head and came closer. Steve’s heart started to gallop.

“You can come”, Steve promised, gesturing towards himself. The Guardian didn’t try to push through, but glided lowly inside him, as if it was putting on a Steve-shaped coat.

What now then?

“Are you lonely?” Steve asked after a while. “Do you miss Helmut? It is all right, I am scared too.”

It was funny thing to say to the creature which was a manifestation of fear, but it sounded right somehow. He waited to feel different, but he was still him, still sad. The wraith wasn’t absorbing his feelings away from him like it could have done to Helmut.

“Alright”, he said quietly. “Take me to him. Take me to Baron Helmut Zemo.”

The Guardian seemed to perk up, much like a dog who heard its master taking a leash and calling it to the walk. It glided entirely through him, and suddenly he was in Helmut’s mindplace again; not on the poppy field or at the gate, but somewhere in the Castle ground. Steve felt it more than actually saw it. The valley, the forest around him seemed more like a draft than a real place. Helmut was dead, so maybe his lingering psychic powers couldn’t keep up nothing more than necessities.

“Alright… where to?”

The Guardian didn’t answer. It turned and then they were already walking on the bridge towards the castle. Of course. Steve prepared himself, but all was quiet, there was no battle.

A blink of an eye, and they were in the staircase, going down. The Guardian was doing it for Steve’s benefit, showing him where they were going instead of going there right away as he had done in the concentration camp nightmare. They were now in the corridor in front of a wooden door. Steve didn’t have to step through it, it opened normally when he pulled from the big iron ring, which acted as a door handle.

What he found inside made him halt at the doorway. This had to be Arnim Zola’s home lab, Steve remembered a room just like this one from the time he had been briefly a prisoner of Hydra. They were scientific equipment which use he could only guess. On the tables there stood flasks and beakers, Bunsen burners, stands with test tubes or those round bottomed bottles in their clamps. There were folders, hundreds of them, neatly on the shelves or open on the table, research papers and black and white photos of Steve. He wasn’t interested in them, though. In the middle of the room there was a metal table, big enough to host an adult male, and this one did.

It was like those old (new) horror movies they had made from Mary Shelley’s novel. Steve didn’t lift the sheet. He was sure he would find Helmut under it. What would he be, a new Boris Karloff, and he wanted Steve to be his Doctor Frankenstein? The wraith was already beside control panel, pointing his bony finger to the ominously looking level.

“I presume you want me to push this down?”

The Guardian nodded.

Steve remembered the air raid. Ms. Jones clothed as a US soldier from the Second World War, the actual bread he had eaten while talking with Helmut at the market in his mindplace. Maybe this was not Helmut’s usual dramatics, it could be Steve really had to do this to get some life on that silent figure. Hoping Helmut wouldn’t wake up as a disfigured monster, Steve pushed the level down.

There was a flash of lightning which came from nowhere. (As everything did in this place.) Steve had to cover his eyes, and when he was able to look again, Helmut was sitting on the edge of the metal table. He was again in his uniform, but this time it was Hydra green, Helmut was an adult. Steve glimpsed himself and noticed he too was in his big boy clothes, in his old army trousers and star and stripes adorned shirt with a brown short leather jacket. He had even his original metal helmet, for Pete’s sake.

“Look at you. All grown up.”

When Steve didn’t say anything, Helmut continued: “Well, at least this one told us why those biomagical copies worked only with me. They didn’t. It wasn’t his invention. It was only my mutant powers keeping my mind alive. Another massive failure for Uncle Arnim.”

Maybe  this was a dream. Steve  pinched himself, but it didn’t feel any different . “ You have died, how many  times?  Do you  even  need  a  body to exist?”

“Look at us. And then they say blondes are stupid.”

“Why would they say that?”

Helmut smirked. How Steve had missed that look! Even those haughty airs the man put up when something wasn’t his cup of tee.

“Is this as Marigold Jones said? You called me here to hijack my body?”

Helmut smirk froze and his water-colored eyes showed a brief flash of hurt. “ You tho u ght that,  a nd  you  still followed  the G uardian?”

Of course he did. And if Helmut really wanted to steal his body… What good had Steve done with it anyway after his own resurrection? Helmut had lived through the years Steve had slept inside the ice. He had adjusted to these modern times in a way Steve would never manage. With Steve’s body he could live his live better than Steve could do it himself. And when push comes to shove: which one would Fury and the SHIELD prefer? An outdated super soldier or their secret hero who had saved the world countless times from Hydra’s schemes?

“Steve. What is wrong?”

Seeing Helmut, talking with him again, when Steve had thought him lost forever. It was almost too much. He wanted to sniffle, but men in uniform couldn’t do that, not even in front of their loved ones. Especially not in front of them.

“What is right”, Steve said quietly. “You are dead.”

“Yes, we established that.” That was Helmut using his sensible tones. “But Steve, you don’t have to feel guilty about it. I made my own choices. I wanted to make right a very old wrong.”

Steve had to laugh at that.  The sound sounded somewhat wet. “Y ou idiot”,  he said more roughly  than  he had meant, speaking around the slump in his throat . “All I wanted was you. You taking me with you and we living  hidden  in some remote island. Or saving  B ucky  together . I am sure I could have  covered your stupid ass,  and then nobody need ed to die .”

“Yes, you would have worn gloves”, Helmut had to admit. Steve felt there was a story somewhere, but now was not the time.

“Come with me.”

The idea had came to him, and then it was out of his mouth. Steve noticed he had managed to surprise his shieldmate. A rate feat, so Steve pushed on, “If you are so powerful maybe you can exist in the real world. We could at least try it. You can always came back here if it fails or feels bad for you.”

“Hold on”, Helmut asked. “As a ghost you mean? You would really get used to that?”

“I don’t care. It would still be you.”

“Yes, I would, wouldn’t I?” Helmut mused. He looked like he was really pondering Steve’s idea. “You call yourself so humbly a kid from Brooklyn, but somehow you are more of an explorer and visioner than the most educated men in my family.”

Or maybe he was desperate to get Helmut any way he was able.

“Do you recall my scar?” Helmut asked after a thoughtful silence, tapping his cheekbone. “This one was from the bullet you shot at me in the castle all those years ago. It has followed me to my every incarnation. Every one of my clone bodies had it, it just appeared after some time.”

“Is it like that with your tattoo also?” Steve realized. “You didn’t make it yourself, it appeared? Your powers...”

“Yes. That much you have always meant to me. As much as my guilt of the things long pass, and I can assure you, that is a massive amount.”

Steve couldn’t  keep still any more. He grabbed  the front of  Helmut’s uniform jacket and kissed him.  Helmut  didn’t hold back either, his body yielded and they melted together, their lips and tongues,  their hands searching and holding and starting to take off all those unwanted layers covering the warming and blushing flesh. 

The psychics were weird, Steve had to think. They had known each other so little time, but on the other hand it felt like forever. Helmut was backing off a bit, snipping his lower lip with his teeth. Steve  didn’t prevent a moan  as his lover’s hands did things in his lower back .  That raised a question c ould they… here,  in Helmut’s mindplace ?  But why not?  If Helmut was f ading without  his  bo d y … if this was a goodbye, they had to make the most of it. 

Maybe it was indeed true what the booklets stated. (Doctor Samson had given him those in abundance). Steve remember how he had laughed when the text argued the sex being mostly a head thing, happening as much inside the brain than inside the groin. Anyway, however it was, with Helmut it was wonderful, a body or no body. The sex with his previous partners had been nice, it had been arousing or satisfying, but... It was… This was like to run after he had been shot with the super soldier serum. To feel the air in his lungs and breathe deeply, no coughing, no suffocating, but enjoying the feeling of freedom. It was the joy he had felt when his shield ricocheted perfectly back into his hands for the first time. Being with Helmut was all the good things in his past put together and he living them at once, not in the dizzying, artificial ecstasy as during that week in the Castle Zemo, but like… life. Feeling a real life, real happiness and sharing it with somebody he loved. 

They had  fallen  asleep  in each others arms.  S omehow Steve had thought they would wake up that way,  but o pening his eyes revealed  his hope had been in vain. First, because  he was not in Helmut’s mindplace  but  in his room in the Avengers mansion , and the second, Helmut was nowhere to be seen. 

Steve s a t  up  and pushed his blanket away .  His heart was racing and he felt warm, but not in a nice way.  The Guardian, the Castle, Helmut raising  from his deathbed  like a handsome Frankenstein’s monster, it couldn’t have been only a dream, could it?  There was no describing the disappointment he felt until he  suddenly  sensed Helmut’s presence.  He was so close, and Steve turned this way and that trying to see a glimpse of the man.  It was soon clear to Steve in the real world he could only feel  H elmut, not to see him. It would n’t be ideal,  but  still  better than nothing.

Maybe there was be some way to communicate. “Helmut?” he asked quietly.

 _Yes_.

“Helmut!” Steve jumped from the bed in excitement. It had worked! “Helmut, I can’t see you. Where are you? Can you tell?”

There was a long and embarrassed silence, but Steve could still feel Helmut’s presence, so at least he was in the same room with him.

_Remember when you asked if I am trying to hijack you? Please, don’t freak out, I didn’t do this on purpose. I think I am inside you._

Steve  felt how a wide leer  twisted the corner of his mouth when an obvious double meaning from the last night came  in to his mind.  Helmut  heard it and made a mental pinched face.

_ T _ _ his is not a laughing matter, _ he argued.  _ When you were still s _ _ le _ _ eping,  _ _ I tried to go back  _ _ to my mindplace  _ _ but  _ _ it _ _ seems I am stuck. Maybe if  _ _ we _ _ ask  _ _ Professor X _ _ avier… _

“And then what? Marigold Jones, you embarrassed her once already. She is afraid of your power and will exorcise you in a heartbeat if the SHIELD finds out.”

_M aybe it would not be a bad thing. You probably look and sound like a mental patient, talking with yourself in the empty room._

“If you would use your Nazi accent and talk aloud it would not be so bad.”

_ If  we talked inside our minds even less so.  _

“Good idea! Let’s try the silent talk.” _Helmut, d_ _o you hear me!_

_Loud and clear. Please, Steve. Don’t shout into my ears._

_Sorry._

They managed the shower somehow, even if the thought of Helmut looking at him washing himself turned Steve all hot and bothered and retarded his morning routine. Helmut would indeed feel all that was happening in Steve’s body. Steve was used to ignore his hunger or arousal or tiredness or any other feelings other people found ordinary, but which Poor-Sick-Steve or Army-Steve hadn’t been able to satisfy. With Helmut on board that wasn’t so easy to ignore than before. After the sexy shower time he felt famished, and part of it was clearly due to his new head companion who was strongly against the morning jogs before the breakfast.

 _Alright, but it is your fault if I will become slow and fat and you will find me unattractive_ , Steve mumbled in his mind.

 _What are you, a superhero or a supermodel_ , Helmut mocked him. Then he felt how his shieldmate became more severe before he used his sensible tones again: _Look, Steve. If you are not going to tell anybody_ _about me_ _right now, you have to watch out your facial expressions. You can’t try to compensate the lack of my bodily presence with all those overflowing gestures and_ _making exaggerated faces._

What? He wasn’t doing anything.

 _You really think_ _so?_ Helmut sounded amused. _Why don’t we continue this conversation in front of the bathroom mirror._

Luckily they hadn’t made a bet of it. Steve was looking like a pantomime performer. He called forward his Captain Face, but that didn’t satisfied Helmut either.

_Yes, soldier. Your mama called and informed us your old doggy died during your last tour. I am sorry for your loss._

_Oh, come on! They will think I had a bad night. I have had those in a row lately._

That made Helmut make an equivalent of sigh in his mind. _You have, haven’t you._

_Please, don’t feel guilty about your heroic death._

_Oh, so that is how they nowadays call_ _amateurish_ _screw-ups_ , Helmut snorted. Somewhere in the middle of their nightly sessions he had told Steve about his rescue mission, and what had happened with Sasha. Obviously Helmut had waited some kind of bad reaction from Steve, but Steve had noticed he didn’t mind so much. Maybe because he hadn’t felt any romantic or lustful feelings or even regret on Helmut’s part when he talked about the Hydra North officer and his demise. Steve too had used sex as a means to an end when any other practical ways were not available.

 _You are thinking_ _about_ _Carl… and_ _Sasha_ , Helmut said, and the feel of him gained a questioning flavor.

That was the thing which was going to be extra difficult in their relationship. Or maybe not. Sometimes there was no harm to be an open book and brutally honest. _I_ _become_ _easily_ _jealous_ _,_ Steve explained. _I don’t know why. It seems other men of_ _our_ _inclinations can_ _have_ _casual_ _sex_ _with multiple partners_ _without any difficulties, can li_ _v_ _e even in polyamory relationships. That is so different_ _from_ _what I am taught in my youth I don’t think I can feel comfortable with those concepts_ _in my own life._ _Doctor Samson_ _promised_ _I_ _don’t_ _have to, that they are only possibilities_ _or preferences, not a model I have to emulate._ _Maybe it_ _is_ _because of my_ _childhood_ _, I had so little,_ _only_ _one parent, one friend_ _and_ _that_ _made me_ _constantly worried_ _even_ _that will be snatched away from me._ _I am not used to share my affection_ _s_ _._

_ Oh doctor  F reud,  _ Helmut sneered. _N ice to make your acquaintance, and to answer to your question under that little promo speech: no._

_N_ _o what?_ Steve wondered.

_No, you can’t have any other guys than me. No happy foursome with Tony and Bucky in sight. I am bred to be monogamous with my shieldmate, sharing strong feelings with anything or anybody else would diminish the bond and the power we can gain being together. So the ground rules: as long as I am riding shotgun in you head, no funny business and no funny expressions. Is that a deal?_

Steve felt his heart swell with affection. Helmut had turned his insecurity around with ease and grace, saving Steve to sound a demanding and clingy old maid.

_Please, are you ready to go now? I am dying of hunger here._

_You fancy pants._ Steve felt smile breading on his lips. _No wonder that butler fella shadowed_ _you with_ _a_ _tray_ _in_ _his_ _hand_ _s_ _. Can’t let your little tummy feel all empty now._

_I will never hear the end of it, won’t I? Does Jarvis do pancakes every morning?_

_Yeah, I think…_

_Come on! Race you._

That one they would win together. Steve managed to the stairs, then he had to giggle aloud for the absurdity of it all.

*

It had been a nice funeral, Fury thought watching the footage of Romanoff’s bodycam. As the body of Helmut Zemo disappeared in the inferno of Thor’s making, he turned the video off.

Fury had been of two minds about participating the ceremony. Rogers had invited him, because he was an eternal boy scout. However, Fury estimated Rogers would fare better if he didn’t have to mind his acts because of him. Rogers didn’t need the extra stress the presence of his superior officer would bring to his situation. So Fury had declined, and was sure it had been a sensible choice. Helmut Zemo didn’t want or need his sentimentality, if it hindered the work they had done together the last three decades.

Then it finally hit him. Baron Helmut Zemo was dead. After this moment and forever, there would be no sudden backup, no clandestine meetings in the dark vans. No fresh ideas, no valued second opinions, no warning of Hydra’s plans. If Fury would think to fight Electro with his bare hands again, somebody else had to give him a kiss of life.

Fortunately his other spies were telling him the Hydra was still in chaos in the aftermath of its massive info leak and panicky search of the traitors. Fury had appointed a team of experts whose only purpose was to analyze the current state of affairs and its consequences. The psychology behind the situation didn’t feel a complicated one. First, there would be a hasty, flashy strike to ease the hurt of their put-down, then they would really start to plan something big and nasty, and now when SHIELD had no spy in the right position, who would guess what was going on in the cold-hearted, selfish minds of their leaders and financiers.

It was clear Fury had much to arrange. He was ordered to fly to Washington DC, to play as a witness in the Senate hearings, and he was of course asked about the person behind the mysterious info leak. Hydra had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about Zemo, no boastful statements or torture videos, only a neutral announcement of his execution.

It would have been amateurish to blatantly lie when being under the oath, so he gave them bits about Zemo without naming any actual names. In a world where their cities were attacked by aliens on a regular bases, where guy hanging from the spiderweb over the Times Square was as mundane sight as a grocery list on the fridge door, where demigods flew in the sky, mutants with bizarre superpowers were also teens with teenager issues, one body-hopping Nazi geezer would have earned maybe a half-raised eyebrow.

In other words, Fury had been busy. He had asked Romanoff about Rogers time to time, because Doctor Samson had this pesky thing called doctor-patient confidentiality, and he refused to keep Fury dated besides of his opinion about Captain America’s ability to do his job.

Maybe feeling those lingering remains of Zemo’s psychic presence had given Rogers some closure. People of his generation had used to bite their teeth together and go on. Still, Fury thought it was strange. It had started in the meeting after the team’s battle with Crimson Dynamo and his henchmen.

That communist relic had been actually looking for Iron Man. Unlucky for the guy, he had found his target. Fresh from his rehab, Stark had been full of energy and vicious spirit. The agents had been collecting parts of Dynamo’s armor for days after the skirmish.

The urban terrorists (formerly known as supervillains) were now occupying the SHIELD cell, waiting for their trial. The team had been boisterous during the debriefing, and going to their new pizza joint to celebrate. That was magnificent, their bonding in the field and after, but Fury couldn’t look at Rogers’s genuine looking smile without feeling worried. Maybe Rogers was giddy because his pal Tony was home again. Maybe it would pass and already tomorrow Rogers would remember his best fella had died less than a month ago. Fury was afraid a big breakdown was only a few steps away, and asking Doctor Samson was as useless as always. So he asked Romanoff if she had observed anything potentially disturbing.

Steve was meeting Barnes every day. A several hours a day, if he was free from his other duties. Fury got shivers every time he remembered their original negotiation before Zemo’s funeral. How suspicious Rogers had been of Marigold Jones, who hadn’t been able to help Zemo. But Zemo had been an omega level psychic. This was only Hydra deprogramming. It would still be a long and slow process. There was also a real possibility Barnes would never remember Rogers or their common history, but at least he would regain some life of his own again.

_Well… you have always recommended that I should meet new people. Sir._

How much misfortune one person should endure, Fury had thought looking at those hooded eyes and sad, eerie calm smile. And you, he admonished himself. You should lead an internationally operating organization, not to baby-sit vintage super soldiers.

Then a few weeks after that conversation. Suddenly Rogers was all smiles and whistles. A spring in his step.

That was downright spooky. Like a bad omen. Romanoff asked if he was familiar with the stages of grief.

Fury was, but Rogers was going through them in a wrong order and stepping over levels. And what was even more disturbing; agent Romanoff’s reports started being shorter and more vague every time Fury asked for an update.

Finally, it was not Romanoff but Fury himself who noticed something game changing. He was reading a boring quarter year report when he turned the monitor on with the intention of watching the team’s afternoon practice as he suddenly jumped up from his chair, his tablet dropping on the floor, forgotten.

What the hell had he just seen?

“Agent Sanders”, he said into his comm. “When the Avengers cease their practice, call Romanoff and ask her to meet me in my office.”

With showers and lunch it took a few hours. Enough time to check and strengthen the PSI dampeners of his office. He kept his pistol in hand, though, just in case.

“Romanoff, Captain’s performance with the blades... how would you describe it?”

Fury had seen Zemo perform almost those same flashy moves when the Avengers had their last mock fight with the Thunderbolts. It was no way that was a co-incidence, Captain hadn’t been with them that time, and there was no video record he knew of, Fury only knew, because he had been there and seen Zemo’s stunt with his own eye.

“During that week in Germany, they practised together”, Romanoff explained. “It was not only Cap teaching Zemo, Zemo too taught him some tricks of his own. They will come handy when fighting with people who had to somehow compensate their lack of super powers. He doesn’t want to talk with us or Samson about Zemo, so doing some Zemo-related things with him seemed the best way of action.”

It was a plausible explanation. Were nicely done on Romanoff’s part. It was also a blatant lie. Romanoff was lying to him, but was she doing it under the influence or because of some sinister cause.

Romanoff didn’t say anything, when Fury showed his gun, pointing it at her chest. Two agents stepped to the room with Marigold Jones, and Fury turned dampeners off. While one of the agents put handcuffs on Romanoff, Ms. Jones pushed a sharp-snailed grab with handle against the back of her neck and left it there.

What followed was lots of brows creasing and puckering lips and any other expressions which told Fury Ms. Jones was working with her psychic powers, not giving Romanoff a scalp massage with her handle-free left hand. After some ten minutes she released the device and shook his head; she had found no outside influence in Romanoff’s mind.

“I see”, Fury said from between his gritted teeth. “Agent Romanoff, you have to make a choice now. If you still want to work within this organization, you will go back to the mansion and sedate Captain in any way possible. I want him in the cell wing of this base asap.”

“Better wait that Thor and Wilson are left for bowling”, Romanoff said calmly. She had somehow been able to trick her cuffs while Fury had been busy watching Ms. Jones’s performance. “Stark will be in his workshop all afternoon. In a few hours it will be his first gala performance without alcohol or drugs in his system and he needs to tinker to ease his nerves.”

“And van Dyne?”

“You don’t need to worry about Janet, Director. Before Captain surfaced she was about to be the co-leader of the Avengers. She is very intuitive and understands necessities better than any of us.”

And what the hell that was supposed to mean, Fury thought as Romanoff vanished out of the door. Then he had no more time to ponder her cryptic words, because there was lots of arrangements to make before that thing wearing Rogers’s face and body was safely where Fury wanted it to be.

Their NYC compound didn’t have alien-proofed manacles Rogers had met previously, and Fury had to trust the normal ones. The cell was surrounded with PSI dampeners, and the door would be able to handle any increase in power Rogers’s body would be performing. Fury remembered Rogers’s former panic attack when the doctors had bound him in a provocative and vulnerable position. He entertained a thought how that would jolt Rogers’s mind, gave him fear infused power to fight Zemo’s influence, but he knew it was hopeful thinking. Rogers was dead and things Ms. Jones had warned Fury about had came to pass right under his nose. And with the blessing of his best spy, Fury realized sadly. He had yet no idea what to do with Romanoff who for some reason had let or even helped Zemo to kill her former team leader.

Marigold Jones had promised she would leave her resignation, if Fury forced her to come even to the same part of the base as the body-snatching bastard. That left him no other option than trying to get a call through to Xavier.

“I am so fucking disappointed in you”, he hissed to the door microphone outside the cell. “You lived your life as a hero and died the same way. I would have expected more of you, but obviously you chose the afterlife of a damn parasitic leech.”

Fury was given a cold but lightly unfocused stare from those ocean-colored eyes. “Don’t you dare to talk like that to my shieldmate”, the thing slurred, making a very distinguishable jaw jump after it had said its piece. That made Fury hesitate for a second, but then he remembered all the superb performances he had witnessed during the years he had known Helmut Zemo. For Zemo it would not be hardship to play the role of Captain America, he had been in the vicinity of him enough times.

“Director, Professor Xavier is waiting”, Sander’s voice in his comm interrupted his musings.

“You mean he is here in person?” Fury wondered. That was unusual.

He turned. Sanders had to be listening him preaching in the front of the cell door and had stalled with their guest. Fury had expected to see a man in the wheelchair, but Xavier was walking normally towards them. Oh well. That was the most ordinary thing of this week anyway.

“What my scans told me”, Xavier said after the greetings. His full attention was already in the thing behind the glass even if he was talking with Fury. “It is indeed true. Good heavens, what on earth have they given you? Well, I have to block that chemical cocktail from their brain if we want to converse... Here we go. We’ll meet again, Captain… and Baron.”

For a moment Fury could only stare. Xavier had talked about _them_. Did that mean Rogers was alive and not absorbed by Zemo as Ms. Jones had predicted?

“Could you turn off those PSI dampeners?” Xavier was asking. “I can perform they on, but they are giving me a light headache.”

Fury didn’t have to turn that polite sentence around to see what it really meant. Probably their equipment hadn’t done much good against Zemo either. The thing in the cell smirked like guessing (reading? tasting?) his thoughts.

Then the other two (or three) engaged themselves with a psychic conversation, because there was lots of standing still eyelids half mast and doing nothing. Fury felt played out, and he run away (literally) to hide inside his office.

The situation stayed that way almost two hours. He had put Sanders to look after their guest, so he was not surprised as he heard a short and polite buzz of his door comm.

“Yes, please Professor. Come in. Have a seat. Would you like to have some refreshments? I will ask for coffee or maybe soda?”

“No thank you”, Xavier declined, sitting down on the sofa near the archive cabinet. “An interesting situation you have here.”

That was one way of putting it.

“What is maybe difficult to understand, this was not a hostile takeover, but more like a lucky accident.”

Oh what the fuck’s sake! Of course those psychic types would stick together and find everything hunky dory. “How can that be possible?” Fury protested aloud. “It is Rogers’s body, does he have no say about the matter? This can’t go on. It is totally unnatural. Creepy.”

Oh shit, Fury realized as the words left his mouth. He hadn’t just said mutants were creepy, had he? And especially mutant psychics? Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, Fury repeated to himself, and of course that was all he could think about. Xavier’s face was now sporting that carefully neutral expression Romanoff favored when she wanted everyone in the room to know she was peeved.

“What do you suggest, Director? That I remove a living psychic entity from his willing host? Break up a relationship which is fully consensual and flourishing? Baron Zemo’s mutation means he can’t live without emphatic energy, and without a body to gather it up he will die. Are you asking me to murder an innocent man because of the bigotry of one-minded people?”

 _Bigotry of…_ Was that even a thing? Apparently, it was now.

“Alright. I am sorry, scratch that plan. What do you suggest we do now?”

“How about letting them out of that cell”, Xavier said, standing up. “Then maybe a massage.”

“Massage?”

“Those manacles of yours are murder for the neck muscles. They will be taunt otherwise.”

It would be an understatement Fury needed time to adjust to this new situation. Salt for his wounds was the knowledge the whole Avenger team had known about Rogers and Zemo before Fury had his gut reaction. Rogers (and Zemo) were avoiding him, and their teammates made sure they were not letting newly-weds alone with him after the debriefings.

After a few days of their hide-and-seek, Fury finally had it enough.

“In my office, Captain. Now.”

A slow calculating smile was hard to place. That kind was typical for Rogers but maybe for Zemo as well.

 _Spooky_.

“Steve. Z”, Fury started after they were both (the three of them!) sat down. “I have dozens of reports of recent Hydra activity, but what I lack is my expert to analyze all that data.”

“Is that so.” That was definitely Rogers making his calm and angry face. “Well, I will leave you two to it and take a brief nap.”

“What do you mean you take a… Steve?”

Alright. He could do this. Fury leaned back in his chair. Suddenly it felt difficult to find a good position. The man in front of him tilted his head, smirked at him as he started talking with that exaggerated German accent he had used as a Nazi supervillain. _Yeah, rub it in, will you_ , Fury thought. _You bastards._

“Steve did that on purpose, you know.”

Fury nodded. “So… he lets you use his body.”

“We call it riding. Yes, naturally. Usually we share face time, but sometimes it is more handy to work alone. Our only private time is when the other one is sleeping.”

That sounded inauspicious. “What percent of the time do you…”

“I had an idea you will ask. I have observed us and made you a few charts.” Z tapped quickly his tablet and showed him where to find the memos he had written of his notes. “That was the main reason he procrastinated to tell you. He was sure you would be prissy about this. His words. Not mine.”

“I am not…”

Z gave him his pull-the-other-one-Fury -look. Fury found the expression extreme silly on Steve’s face.

“I usually sleep while Steve is exercising. He doesn’t like me whining about how our body hurts. What he actually means is he doesn’t want me hurting. He is such a mother hen.”

“I would prefer a term gentleman.”

The sudden and strong Brooklyn accent made Fury jump out of his chair. Everything in the body language and expressions had changed in a matter of split second. It was like the man in front of him had put on a body-sized mask.

“We have became faster by practicing”, Steve explained. “It had been very handy in the battle. Z can show you more recordings of our training sessions.”

“Yes, do that.” Fury said and was proud he could do that without stuttering. He slumped back into his chair. Even if the situation was… spooky and not for his taste, he was starting to wonder about its potential (as Steve and Z had clearly meant to happen).

What were they actually offering to him in that neat package of theirs? There were the basics: strategic genius of a high ranking career officer and practical field smarts of a team leader, and even that would have been like winning in the spy lottery, but look, there was much, much more. The stamina of a super soldier, and those increased physical abilities of their magic bond. Zemo was an IT expert. He could do all the heavy lifting with the modern technology, which would otherwise cripple Captain’s performance. Not to say, he was a plotter with seventy years of espionage experience and uncharted psychic powers.

The list went on and on, and yes, Fury was definitely starting to see possibilities.


	18. May Day! May Day!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is green, it jumps, but it is not an angry grasshopper.

Maybe he should feel honored, Tony thought afterwards. They had told him first, which meant a huge amount of trust from the guys who were notoriously bad in that department. Steve could have told Janet or Jarvis, but he had told Tony, nice, and he had been a real pal, so adult about the whole situation that he had to check out if he had gained a few more grey hairs and wrinkles in process. From A to F Tony scored A+ in the supportive friend department, yeah baby!

It had been the day he came home from the rehab, which, by the way, had been the usual hell, thank you very much for asking. If not that reality TV-star whom her producer dumped to the place because of the negative viewer response for her third DUI, it would have been a real drag; oh God what a bombshell, and that ass. Oh mama! You could bite pieces out of that glorious mountain of flesh but it was like a Duracell, it just went on and on… which wasn’t anything to write home about if put besides Cap’s ski jump, of course. Taunt like a kettle rum, that one, make you wish you had some sense of rhythm to do its sounds any justice...

Did he say those last couple of sentences aloud? He glimpsed around to make sure, but Cap didn’t look like he had taken offense. Tony’s shoulders relaxed and he leaned again over the workbench. That bombshell anyway, and that damn video she had taken about them, when Tony was too sexed up to notice, well, Tony’s PR-people had to work for their money again, he just hoped Steve hadn’t been watching his dick… or did he hope Steve would watch… tough decision, and probably Steve would find the whole thing boring, he had seen Tony’s organ enough times in the shower or the locker rooms. He would be more interested in one of his books anyway. They sat often like that, Steve on the couch reading and Tony at his workbench, tinkering with the parts of his Iron Man armor. Tony talking… why was he blabbing when Steve tried to read, so impolite.

“I don’t mind”, Steve said. Yes, definitely Tony had been talking aloud. “I was actually pondering… Are you still pissed off with me?”

Tony dropped the soldering iron. Luckily he didn’t scorch any of the electronics in his gauntlet. What the hell did Steve mean? Mad? Why would he...

“I was told you were in my funeral. Steve said you made a fine speech so I assume Fury has explained you a few things. Am I right?”

Alright, too much booze and drugs and wild parties when he was in his late teens. He was hallucinating. He didn’t really hear what Steve had just said, and why would an Irish kid from Brooklyn suddenly speak English with a posh Transatlantic accent? Tony had to be under the influence of his early experiments. He wasn’t really seeing that tilted head and smug smile, which raised only the right corner of the man’s mouth.

“Alright… alright… Now is not Halloween… dead people don’t wander around the earth… Is my family mansion built in some old Indian grave yard, is that it? What the fuck, Steve, why are you channeling Mr. McGinnis? That is so… I remember this movie were the guy was possessed by his own ventriloquist doll...”

The smile following his word vomit was genuine Steve, and the accent, yeah, a working class brogue again. “It is just… it is so nice you are home, Tony. I am so happy, and that made me want to share… As you saw, he is alive. And I mean for real, I am not nuts and pretending to speak and act like him. I know it is much to believe. Maybe if you take a peek?

Curiosity killed the cat. And probably Tony too, but not that day. He had nodded, and then he felt the strange pull which always meant Mr. McGinnis was using his mutant power. He found himself standing in the poppy field, Bambi jumping like a maniac all around him. (He should ask Doctor Samson about that. Bambi was a part of Zemo as a kid, and Tony found his interest in him curious. But maybe it was something simple, like some of Zemo’s adult relative had had a dark beard and he found Tony familiar and comforting.)

Alright. Maybe things had changed while Tony had been locked away. This would need a further investigation.

“Let me get this straight”, Tony was saying. “You both are in Steve’s body… how… never mind that! How do you know when to talk or walk or… Why are you not falling over your own feet? And what if one of you want to keep it against the left leg and the other against the right...”

“Tony, take a breath. Think. How do you know when to talk when you are talking with me?”

“That easy, huh.”

“More easy”, Mr. McGinnis was now saying. “I am an empath, you know. I am well tuned with him.”

“And you are both really alright with this? I don’t have to ask my secretary to call the Vatican and try to get an exorcist, do I?”

Then the most horrible idea came to Tony’s mind. “Oh fucking God! You… I mean, you just started the whole dating business… and… I would go more bananas than Madonna if I had to be without sex, I mean they yammered something about how I am sex-dependent… Unhealthy way of coping and all that. If wanting to fuck is not a make-believe illness, I don’t know what is. Those shrinks are so fucking greedy, almost two thousand bucks a day for some placebo pills and a glass of orange juice! Jesus, oh Steve! Zemo was kind of disquieting but in a sexy way, you know. I am so, so sorry for you guys.”

During his speech, Cap was making some strange noises, like a small animal having a stuffy nose. They have different styles of laughing, Steve explained when Tony was half ready to do a Heimlich maneuver on him. Mr. McGinnis breathed in while Steve had tried to breathe out at the same time, and sometimes it was a bit awkward.

You could say that again. They were laughing at him. Not with him. At. Him. Tony Stark. A billionaire, playboy...

“Tony, Tony, Tony a worldly guy like you”, Steve snickered after he had gained some air to speak. “You call yourself a genius. Use some imagination.”

He did.

“Oh”, was all that he could utter. His usually busy mind was totally blank for a few seconds.

That would certainly carry a role playing onto the whole new level. In that mindplace… they could be anything in anywhere, like the holodeck of Stark Trek finally in the use it would be in a real world. In the flesh and blood reality, though. Yes, Tony realized. Steve and Mr. McGinnis together in Steve’s body. To do things to himself when somebody else guided his hands... Oh God, even the thought gave him a boner.

Yeah, it really did. At least his new meds were not going to neuter him.

“Aaa… Sorry guys. A problem”, Tony said and was about to stand up and run to the bathroom when he was suggested another solution.

Mr. McGinnis didn’t have to do it. Tony was already sold, he had petted Bambi and seen with his own eyes how genuinely happy Steve was about the situation. They didn’t need to bribe him, but Tony didn’t refuse either, why would he, that would have been impolite.

Once again he found himself in the mindplace. This time it was not a poppy field, it was a club, not much different from the place where they had seen Peggy Carter (Maybe he should talk the guys to go out with him. To get some modernization to the scenery.) The orchestra was playing, and there were people in their evening gear sitting at the tables or dancing.

He could see Steve and Z on the dance floor. Shit, those guys had been so good-looking together it was a real shame... and wow, they could dance, a treat even some debutantes lacked nowadays. There was no way Tony would disturb them, so he wandered towards the bar. An old habit, a strange situation, go to the bar and everything will sort itself out. Would drinking in your imagination still be considered consuming alcohol? Yeah, it would, Tony decided and asked for a ginger ale, when he saw _her_. How come she had been standing there unnoticed, or had she appeared from nowhere as could happen in this place?

She had been called the only good thing in the worst Bond movie ever. That Tony could sign. She was not the real Grace Jones, of course not, Tony was well aware of that. The actress was like seventy years old now. The woman leaning sensually on the bar, however, she was the femme fatale of that same movie, May Day in her rose-red and statuesque evening dress. The androgynous goddess of Tony’s boyhood years.

Mr. McGinnis, you will be the death of me, Tony mumbled under his breath. “Would you like a drink?” he asked, because the lady didn’t have a glass in front of her.

“No I would not”, May Day said, giving him a brusque leer. “Would you like to dance, little man?”

Would he…

Tony was able to nod. His playboy savvy had totally abandoned him. The arms and hands, which could lift a grown man over her head and toss him from the rooftop, were touching him. The hot air from those perfect, crimson-colored lips hit Tony’s ear and cheek, and his dick grow instantly so hard it was starting to feel painful.

“You don’t mind if I lead, do you? We both will feel better that way.”

No, Tony certainly didn’t mind. That was May Day through and through.

“Look at you”, she growled. “Such a nice moves you have. I am sure you will do better than Mr. Bond over there.”

_Oh_ _G_ _od_ , he thought. He glimpsed over his shoulder, and there he was, a very Roger Moore looking man, watching Tony his face full of bitter envy.

NSFW, the rest of it.

Tony jerked awake on his workshop couch. Steve had put a blanket over his torso and left, maybe to give him some privacy. How had he looked like in the real world while living his old fantasy in Zemo’s mindplace, he was suddenly curious. Had he been moaning like a porn star or was he just lying unconscious? The cams in the workshop showed the latter. He was resting there peacefully while having the best sex of his life, but somehow it still felt a private thing, and he was glad that Jarvis didn’t come in during his mental orgy.

Tony was curious, and Steve was more than happy to obligate him. While they talked and tested, Tony more felt than saw Mr. McGinnis taking brief evaluating looks through Steve’s eyes.

“Z is the only one who can move and speak in the real world while being in his mindplace. It is impressive place, isn’t it? Very easily a thing you lost yourself in while your body dehydrates and dies in a real world.”

“Nice way to go.”

That comment made those perfect eyes squint in a very familiar way. “Z is not going to be your personal brothel, Tony. I wanted to do something nice to you, and you seemed to like it. But Tony...”

Yeah,  he knew that tone of voice  too . And had it  ever  been wrong?

M aybe he  really  should talk with  Doctor  Samson. About sex. When it was nice. And also all those countless times  when it had been less than nice,  kind of o u t right crappy.

Tony was not so socially clumsy as people thought while observing his behavior. He knew what Samson would say. Tony had all the holics there was. He had lived his life from one addiction to another, some of them being more harmless than the others. One down, at least three to go. (Workaholic and shopaholic and sexaholic.) He sometimes wondered if he got some reason and tracks for his life, would anybody recognize him any more? Would it be made by Tony Stark if it wasn’t something extraordinary and way over the top?

“There is a catch”, Mr. McGinnis had confessed.

There always was. This was not a bad one even if it sounded gross. Mr. McGinnis had been munching Tony’s emotional overflow while he had been visiting the mindplace. He was doing the same all the time actually, but in the mindplace it was much more efficient.

“Well, suck away, alright… What does it taste like? Is there a difference? Do I taste better while happy or sad?”

“Your emotion when you thought Steve was dead… it was very flavored. Lets call it French Cuisine. At least three Michelin stars. This meeting with your teenage flame… Hm, an average burger, perhaps.”

“Jesus, you are a boogie man!”

“Yes, I suppose so”, Mr. McGinnis sighed. “Better than being an incubus, though. Too bad I am not a telepath. I could connect us during the fight. This ability is… as you stated, boogie. The battle would stop instantly, though. Maybe we should try the snatching with a hostile opponent?”

“I was quite hostile when you dropped me into that lake near the castle”, Tony mused. “I bet you will do fine in that department. But if a hostile has psychic abilities of their own. You are an empath and very sensitive… Would you be vulnerable? Could they hijack you out of Steve’s body? Maybe turn you against us?”

“No idea. That is one thing we have to find out before doing anything of that kind in the field.”

“That means we have to talk with the team”, Steve decided. “We need their help anyway.”

That had been one peculiar afternoon. At least Mr. McGinnis got some out of it, because the team’s emotions were all over the place. They were in turn happy and horrified, suspicious and curious and a few dozen other flavors as well. Tony felt like a perfume presenter when he showed what being in the mindplace did to your body in a real world. (Janet and Nat already knew that part.) After Steve’s little speech Sam too was easy to persuade (he would have flown in the castle valley for hours if Nat hadn’t came impatient and brought him back.) That left only Thor, who as known to the team, was not a friend of sorcery. He couldn’t show cowardice in front of his comrades in arms, though. (Thor’s words, not theirs.) For his peace of mind the team let him set his own rules how he would proceed.

Finally, they were in the training room. The God of Thunder had declined a chair or a training mat, insisting he would stand while being in Zemo’s mindplace. And he really did. Thor loomed next to the door, his eyes open, looking like a stuffed, Viking themed bouncer statue.

“Brother One Letter!” Thor boomed as he came around. “I am most impressed! Be sure you keep that ale plenty and those wenches bounteous. When my godly cousin Hercules joins our noble ranks, we will have to show him a great welcome!”

“Why does everyone think I am a walking and talking brothel?” Mr. McGinnis mumbled. “Don’t any of you want to be scared again? Even a little bit?”

“NO!” Most of the team shouted in unison. But that said… Tony knew Steve put it on their training program.

The Friday movie nights of the team were soon replaced with something Tony had started to call flesh and blood virtual interface. As said Mr. McGinnis was the only one who could act in the real world while being in his mindplace. Not that they wouldn’t trust him (too easily, Tony thought sometimes) but extra security wasn’t a handicap. That extra would be Jarvis, who monitored the Mansion grounds and baby-sit what the old man called “a zombie convention”.

There were of course other means as well. They didn’t need Mr. McGinnis help to leave any more; they all had their own “room” and the door with a key card, and they could hop back to the reality any time they wanted or ask others to visit or spend time with Mr. McGinnis’s avatars, which were always deliriously happy to see them. (The Guardian dropping maggots and body parts all over the place when exited.)

“All right”, Steve was saying one morning, when they were starting their usual real life practice. “Lets do something different this time. We will try to beat up the Guardian.”

That raised a collective groan. What it actually meant, that’s right, nightmares, literally. Tony knew, he had wrote it down in his official, Fury approved training program and then hoped Steve would have forgotten the whole thing.

“We will start with some mild ones”, Steve said. “Remember, any time, if it is too much, go to the door and use your key card.”

It started with the usual. His teammates were dead. There were dead civilians, dead and mutilated children. Tony gritted his teeth and refused to cry or puke when he wandered the scene looking for survivors (who naturally died in his arms when he got them dug out from the rubble.) Then the stage two started, and suddenly he was in the spaceship of some unknown origin. The monstrous aliens were torturing his captured teammates and he was watching helplessly, bounded on the operation table, waiting for his own turn. Those things had developed taste for human flesh, because there were ripping Steve apart and cooking his flesh with their laser beams. (Shitohfuckshit what a lucky day he had seen all the Saw-movies!) The smell of burning flesh, guts hanging from the stomachs ripped apart… (And piles of skulls, don’t forget the usual props!) That was what Mr. McGinnis, that fucker, called the basic level. The piece of cake part, general bad things people were usually scared of. (There were spiders and snakes too!) When they have pushed through those, the Guardian started personalizing.

It was… horrid again. Not so much the scenes or people he saw, but the feeling, that awful feeling you think you were suffocating with your dark emotions and there was no relief in sight.

“No… No more… no… let me out of here...”

That was easier said than done but finally he managed to reach the door. It was the front door of their house. That’s right, Tony and Steve were married with a son, Peter. And they…

He could feel the bruises in his arms under the clothes. Feel his heart beat faster when he thought about the evening, the time they both had said their good nights to Peter. Would this really be a good night or a bad one?

Tony loved this make-believe Steve, but he hurt Tony. So much. So many little ways. He made Tony believe he was crazy, that Tony had imagined all the bad thing he did to him. And again and again Tony convinced himself this make-believe Steve was not a heartless sociopath, that his teammate and co-leader loved him. That they were a happy little family. It was just that sometimes…

The make-believe Steve said Tony had needed it. He had begged for it. He needed to be demeaned and punished, because what do you think you are Tony, you useless little faggot, how could anyone really love a trash like you, you will never be anything, never be like a real man, a real hero. Like Ca...

How come this make-believe Steve sounded so much like Tony’s father? Tony came to his senses on the floor of their training room. Something to talk about with Doctor Samson again. He looked around and saw he wasn’t the first one. Thor was standing in the corner of the room, his face pale. Sam was sitting on the bench, crying.

“Oh God, oh God”, Janet was repeating as she came around. So Steve and Nat were the last ones, and they really let them wait for them. After some twenty minutes Janet was getting antsy, and Tony didn’t feel so stoic either.

“I know you are looking after them, but could you check again, Z?”

Mr. McGinnis had been playing with his knives in front of Clint’s old targets. He took an aim and let the blade fly. A perfect ten.

“They are alright. I don’t...”

“Z”, Janet was asking when the pause seemed to prolong itself. “What is happening?”

“I...” Mr. McGinnis let his knives drop. That if anything told them something was seriously wrong. “I don’t feel so good. I think I will...”

Tony was familiar with the signs but there was no bucket or container to give. Mr. McGinnis took a few steps forward and then hurled on the floor.

Steve was back in a second, speaking aloud to Mr. McGinnis, which told Tony how peculiar the situation was for them.

“What the hell, Helmut! Talk to me, what is happening?”

Z (Steve) bent and puked again and muted any other questions worried Steve was having. On the training mat Natasha was rising from her place of rest.

“What happened? Why did you boot me out, Z? I wasn’t done.”

“An unexpected hitch”, Steve explained. “He ate too much.”

“Ate like...” Nat started. “You don’t look so good.”

“Yes, thank you, I know that”, Mr. McGinnis said, making his famous pinched face. “I was handling it all right until Tony…”

“Yeah, I am a regular Thanksgiving dinner”, Tony said. “Sam, bring them some water, or something. Steve, should we call Xavier?”

“We would never hear the end of it”, Steve said, making a helpless gesture. “And I don’t think we have to… Helmut, do you remember how drained you were when you sent the Guardian after me to the real world? Just send your avatars out. They will use all that extra energy by existing outside your mindplace.”

“He can do that”, Janet wondered. “Then it really was the Guardian Nat and you saw?”

Steve had been still talking aloud to himself. Or to them. It was nice to have a warning when the Guardian suddenly stepped out to the open. Justin Lambert on the pogo stick! The guy was down right horrible in the mindplace but under the hard fluorescent light he looked…

A sad ghost. They could see through him. He looked worried, poor sod. Like a dog who had gnawed a leg of his master’s favorite chair realizing it hadn’t been so great idea after all.

“Don’t feel bad”, Steve was saying. “You did good. This was not your fault. We have to use energy a bit. Do you want to go to explore the mansion?”

The geriatric duo looked surprised when the Guardian didn’t stay to wait for them. Tony hurried to search for his phone. Hopefully, Jarvis had his with him, and Tony could warn the old man in time. He could have a heart attack if a rotting corpse appeared suddenly in front of him.

Of course nothing like that happened. The Englishmen and their tight upper lips.

“Yes, I am well aware, sir. He is here in the kitchen with me... No, why would I? Believe me, master Anthony, I have seen worse in the days your father threw his infamous parties… some of those people… He seems to be fascinated by the blender, by the way. Maybe Mr. McGinnis would consider creating one for him.”

Tony and Steve had hurried to the elevator and rode to the first floor, where the Guardian was indeed orienting himself into Jarvis’s kitchen confidential.

“I am sorry, Jarvis. He was too fast for us.”

“Never mind, Mr. McGinnis. Maybe you could use him on Halloween, kids would love him. Lose the Nazi uniform though… What on earth! Mr. Guardian, would you kindly take your face out of the salad bowl! I know those maggots are not real, but you are dropping them all over the place, and it is supposed to be a part of the dinner.”

First Tony thought the Guardian had obeyed the old man, but the wraith was not interested in Jarvis or the salad, he was staring at the ceiling, letting out a soundless scream of warning, which only Steve and Mr. McGinnis were able to decipher. Tony felt super soldier’s fingers around his arm and then he flew out of the kitchen, or it just felt that way. Jarvis, he thought, but the butler was too far to reach and then Tony was thrown into side, Steve, the idiot, was now diving toward the old man. They rolled aside when a large part of the ceiling collapsed and divided the room, hiding them from Tony’s sight.

Only saving grace was the whole team was not there with them. Too bad they didn’t have their comms or Steve’s shield. That would have been handy as a cover when the rest of the ceiling gave out, and the whole room exploded into the pieces of tiles, wood, and plaster.

What the fu… It was Hulk! Or Doctor Bruce Banner who was now sporting a green skin and his worse attitude. But the poor doctor had flown under SHIELD radar for years. Why to come out now and why here...

Tony’s thoughts were interrupted when the gigantic green figure roared in anger. The thick dust moved away with his gasps of breath, the hands were smashing anything in his way, not minding what he grabbed. Never mind the doorways when you can always make yourself a new one. Yeah, definitely they could have had some use for Cap’s shield and those hulkbuster armors Tony was planning for the SHIELD (he had made computer simulated tests which seemed to work. Too bad this was not a virtual Hulk but a real one.)

And there went the hall. Those tacky pillars, if Tony too had superpowers he would do the smashing himself, it was probably like snapping toothpicks, you started and you couldn’t stop, and yes, oh shitfuckshit, that was the load-bearing wall. When the ceiling over the hall started collapsing, he heard big engines. Big, like really big, coming from the south. Armed crew transportation vehicles in the middle of NYC, and where was the SHIELD. Soon there were classical green tunics and black standard combat gear crawling on the mansion grounds like busy, weapon carrying ants.

A kamikaze strike, Tony realize. Fury and Mr. McGinnis had been right. The Hydra had been planning something fast and showy to restore its ruffed honor, and it didn’t come much flashier that attacking the Avengers mansion.

*

Tony was nowhere to be seen. Maybe Steve hadn’t thrown him far enough or fast enough and he lied under the rubble. What he should do now, search Tony who would very possibly be out the harms way, or let Jarvis die. Tony was a hero, if not unconscious, he could manage himself. If not, Hydra’s focus would not be in him right away. Steve took Jarvis in his arms and then he run like a rabbit out of the way. This Hulk creature didn’t seem to be so particular, he didn’t care if he smashed his allies or them. Or were they his allies? Hulk was a divergent figure, not one of the heroes, but not one of the bad guys either, or that Steve had read from his SHIELD files. Doctor Bruce Banner had been a mild-mannered scientist, an expert of gamma-radiation, who had fallen a victim of his own curiosity and one general’s greed for deadly weapons. (With that latter Steve could sympathize.)

The SHIELD had been searching for him but it seemed Hydra had gotten there first. Or maybe he had been with them all this time. In his altered form Banner was very simple minded, like a child. A very powerful child with a permanent temper tantrum; there was something very juvenile in a way Hulk run through the mansion walls and also those unfortunate Hydra soldiers who were too slow to step away from his path. If Helmut could just snatch him, to took him to his mindplace. If they managed to calm Hulk down, he should turn into Banner.

_I made the Guardian try that one already, but there is something… Hydra has probably supplied him with a dampener, but there is something else too. I feel it so clearly when the Guardian touches him. That is not his natural rage, some outer force is making him muddle-headed and this… desperate. Oh, they have… Steve, it is in his ear, some mechanical device, I guess there is a constant, annoying noise… Obviously they were not looking for finesse. Hydra used him as a bomb. I don’t think he jumped on us, they probably dropped him from the airplane._

_I see_ , Steve said. How to fight a thing who was that invulnerable? You didn’t. You led him away and hoped him to be somebody else’s problem. But they couldn’t do that in the city of millions of people. So…

_We must calm him in any way possible. Others… they were downstairs… do you feel them, are they alright?_

_Yes, do you want Thor to…_

No Thor, Steve had already a plan in mind. They didn’t have their comms but Helmut didn’t feel Janet engaged in the battle yet, it was safe to snatch her a little to send her a message. An image. Janet should make herself more tiny than she has ever been and fly with her full speed near the Hulk’s most vulnerable place, his ear. Then, she should zap him there. Not trying to harm, because that would be impossible, but to short-circuit his torturer. Steve had hopes that the legend of Saint Jerome hold a fragment of truth, that the lion had been grateful for a man who had pulled a thorn out of its pawn. 

“Let go of me, Mr. Rogers!”

It had been Jarvis, but Steve ignored him. That earned him a slap on a cheek.

“Captain! I am not trying to make a noble sacrifice. Were are in the vicinity of one of the emergency exists. Its hidden entry is behind the statue of the founder. Leave me there, I will be alright.”

First Steve thought the old man was lying to him, but then he too  remembered  the map he had seen, t unnels leaving from the mansion ground to the river.  H e pulled the hatch open and let  J arvis go a few  steps down before bushing it close again. Jarvis would close it  properly  behind him. Hydra could use explosives to  get it open , but that would take time, the old man would be safe, and Steve too if he had gone with him. It would have been so easy to leave this scene and escape. 

_Yeah, right,_ Helmut snorted in his mind _._ _You always_ _think_ _like that and never do it anyway_ _._ _The_ _G_ _uardian_ _is_ _keep_ _ing_ _those approaching us_ _busy,_ _but many of them have very good_ _PSI_ _dampeners._ _The Guardian can past them, put it takes lots of energy, I am not sure I can replace it as fast as it goes. So don’t be alarmed if I will_ _go uncons_ _c_ _ious._

_Do it as long as you can. Those that you snatch, don’t try to do anything elaborate. Just drop them into a bathtub full of snakes and piss. That should make them emotional enough to give you something to eat._

_Good idea! That is easy and will keep them busy. Have you seen Tony yet?_

Steve hadn’t and he was starting to worry. _Janet?_

_I can feel her, but I bet she has difficulties to get near_ _him_ _…_ Hulk had hopped through the second floor wall and was now renovating the bay window of Tony’s study. It was a miracle that the manor was still standing. _Nat and Sam are somewhere near too. They feel unharmed. Thor..._

A loud thunderclap answered that question. The whole street in front of the mansion flashed in an explosion as a gas tank caught fire. One of the Hydra vehicles rose into the air and crashed down again. Steve only hoped Thor had remembered to look after civilians.

_There_ _is a_ _Hydra_ _jet_ _nearby, cloaked_ , Helmut warned. _It will fire if they think their land troops are loosing the battle._ _Hopefully_ _Thor will_ _not be occupied._

Something red and gold rocketed up from the ruined mansion, making bricks and wood fly all over again.

_Took long_ _fucking_ _enough... Tony, for fucks sake, no_ _t the H_ _ulk!_ _That monster will do a tin can_ _out of him!_ _He will_ _only hinter_ _J_ _anet’s work if she had_ _to_ _parry his blast_ _s_ _too._ _Say_ _that_ _to him._

_But Steve, it will drop him out from the sky._

_Speak fast! His armor will operate about seven seconds without his conscious mind. It will protect him if he falls._

Iron Man wobbled, but then he changed his direction, flew to what seemed to be a clear sky. Sudden panicky blasting of the guns of the hidden Hydra jet told them that was not the case.

_He and Thor will take care of that, but she will still need all the luck to get closer. One slap and she will be jelly. He is taking down the whole place._

Never mind the house, Tony would probably say. He hated the mansion. If the place were utterly destroyed, maybe Tony could built something that didn’t contain any of his bad memories, only his friends and team and the life Tony was making for himself now on.

_Hydra_ _really want_ _s_ _to get ride of us_ , Steve mused. _They_ _are_ _desperate. I wonder what…_

Then Steve saw _him_. He heard how Helmut gasped in his mind. A familiar figure in the old-fashioned black uniform, sporting a hateful armband of red, white, and black as proudly as Steve carried his own colors. Steve raised his borrowed gun, whose owner was probably screaming in a bathtub full of bloody eyeballs and tickling scorpions, but the magazine was empty. Dammit! Shooting hostiles into their thighs was horrible ineffective, but what could a soldier do? The good guys, you know, and not the wartime, as Steve’s mantra sounded nowadays. He rushed to find a new gun or at least some new magazines, and luckily he didn’t have to look them from afar. Red Skull was still there, standing in the open. Wanting to see with his own eyes their demise. What the everloving…

Steve raised the gun again. From that distance it was impossible to miss, but he did it anyway.

_Helmut, what the fuck!_

It was obvious who had spoiled his aim. _You_ _have_ _already_ _killed_ _three_ _of my_ _parents_ , Helmut said in a tone which tasted like gasoline-dipped ice cubes. _D_ _o you want_ _to collect the_ _whole set?_

Helmut could feel his rage, misery, shame, and disappointment, Steve didn’t have to say anything aloud. He didn’t want to. He started running towards the place he had seen that old Nazi bastard and now Helmut was not hindering their movements.

_He is wounded. He ejected before Iron Man destroyed the jet’s motors…_ _he is using his personal cloaking device, that_ _is_ _why we can’t see him..._ _but there is something else._

There had come to the street. The burning vehicles, dead and unconscious Hydra agents, and abandoned cars made their progress difficult.

_I am not feeling him very well. His emotions are… slippery. Not a dampener, just him… He is so all over the place, in a panic for some reason…_

_No wonder. He is losing against us again. His revenge has failed, there is a good chance for him to be killed or taken a prisoner._

_We could have done that. If you had aimed for his legs._

_Yes, I know,_ Steve interrupted. _And for that I am sorry. It was just… Seeing him in flesh, it was like I was… For a moment I..._

They had come to the police line. It was useless, but they jumped over the fences and continued their search. Some officer was shouting after them, demanding to know what was happening, but the emotions closest to Steve were filled with a silent understanding. Would Steve have killed Red Skull in cold blood? Hell, yeah! But no… that had been only a gut reaction, as if he had been back in the war, in Castle Zemo. You didn’t aim to wound in the war. His rational mind wouldn’t have wanted to kill Johann Schmidt. Steve didn’t want him dead, he wanted him humiliated. The Info Leak had taken care of many powerful Hydra financiers or supporters, but Steve didn’t care about that. He understood the importance, but his mind and hands wanted something more concrete, he wanted Red Skull watching as they literally ripped his empire of evil apart. Red Skull had to stand trial and answer for his crimes against humanity.

_He is gone. He is too far… they had to have another jet somewhere…_

_Never mind_ _,_ Steve admitted. _It is over._

It certainly was. Nothing about it would have mattered much if Janet had failed, but she hadn’t, and Steve didn’t need his comm or Helmut to deduce her important victory; the buildings around them were still standing and the police and onlookers were alive. There were familiar looking black vans and BNTU clad agents taking care of those Hydra soldiers who hadn’t been able to escape the scene. And then there were the media people. Steve had to shove some of them cautiously aside when he pushed through the crowd in his haste to get back to the mansion and make sure his team was alright. Helmut had told him nobody had died or suffering, but Steve needed to see it with his own eyes.

“Captain America! Sir! Could you tell our viewers what is happening?”

“Was this a terrorist attack?”

“Sir, what would you tell to the parents who are worried about your parlance?”

“Captain, some witnesses say they saw terrorists wearing green tunic-like uniforms. Was the Hydra involved? Is it possible this attack was planned against you personally as a symbol of our way of life?”

His parlance was fucking great. And this had been as personal as they get.

He could have sniffed with relief when he saw Janet standing in the driveway. Her costume was in tatters but otherwise she seemed to be alright.

“Janet, you did good, little gal.”

He gave her a careful hug, minding her possible bruises. Janet pushed herself against him and gave out a long, stuttering breath.  “M- m aybe you can call me that this time. Anybody else  and I will … were is Jarvis?”

Tony  had landed next to them  and was  opening his visor, about to ask the same question. “He is out of harm’s way”,  Steve assured them. “He is  in the tunnels. How bad  are the  casualties,  Tony?”

“Not so bad. No civilians were badly hurt, when those guys strike the target, damn, they strike the target. Fifty points to Slytherins! The flying debris broke some windows, but Thor could keep the fires out. He is replacing some cars… You two alright?”

“Not exactly. We saw Red Skull, but lets talk about it later. Nat, where the hell is Sam?”

“He left to help the agents. Steve…”

They called them Steve or Rogers or Captain when they were in public. Anything else would have been confusing for everybody else. (For the team’s private use, Janet and Nat were still trying to decide between Zeve and Stemut.) Steve followed Natasha’s gaze and saw Director Fury coming their way, stopping only to talk briefly with those white coats who were moving drugged Doctor Banner into the SHIELD van. He had turned from the raging green monster back into the ordinary human being right after Janet had destroyed the device in his ear. 

“Poor Banner. But maybe it is better this way. If someone like Hulk is used as a weapon of mass destruction, it is safer in our hands. Right, Director?”

Fury didn’t dignify Helmut’s baiting with the response. “Captain, what is the team’s status? Is any of you hurt?”

There were about twenty dead Hydra soldiers. Those around the mansion were trampled by their green skinned ally or smashed to death by flying debris. Some others were burned by Thor’s lightning or Iron Man’s repulsor blasts. The garden and its lovely statues lay in ruins. The mansion, Steve’s newly found home, and all the expensive and nice things Tony had given him, were destroyed.

“Only the usual, sir”, Steve had to admit. “A total SNAFU.”


	19. Ancestors Hear My Plea (And Please Shut Up!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most peculiar family reunion begins.

“Let me get this right. You didn’t have your comm with you. But you were able to communicate between yourselves through Z.”

The team had given their briefings, when the SHIELD assistant director, Maria Hill, had asked Helmut and Steve to stay, making Steve recapitulate the situation for her all over again. Maybe she was being precise, Helmut thought. Or it could be that Director Hill was snotty and harassing them because she didn’t like Helmut that much. There was that night years ago, when Fury had been shocked by Electro and Helmut was resuscitating him wearing his bad boy uniform and Maria Hill had taken them unawares. Helmut had kicked her into face quite hard before running away from the scene. That had left a bruise on her professional ego also, or maybe it had been Fury’s clumsy explanations that were still ticking her off.

The clean-up after the Hydra attack had lasted the rest of the day as the team helped the agents and then started to sort out the ruins of their former home. Fury had given a statement to the press, but it had been only the basics; every media with enough resources to burn wanted something click-worthy and their own, so the news helicopters hummed over them like bees on a meadow. The Internet was soon full of pictures of the team in a various states of loss and deprivation. The most puzzling one could be that shot of Steve; still in his training sweats, holding in his left hand his shield and in the right a broken bottle of bath salts, looking at the latter mournfully as if it were a skull of his firstborn child. It almost was, Helmut knew. For Steve that icky smelling substance had been a symbol of the life which felt almost too good for a poor, fatherless lad from Brooklyn; and now that little corner of happiness and ease had been snatched away from him again.

“What you are really saying”, Hill was now drawing her final conclusions. “It is possible that with a practice you will be able to communicate through Z’s mindplace without any of you losing conscious. We have usually avoided to recruit psychics for combat teams for obvious reasons, but this would really be an asset in our disposal if used wisely.”

“Why is that?” Steve asked, his tone suspicious. Oh Steve, always the white knight, even if he didn’t have to. Helmut send a calming wave of emotion to his way, but his shieldmate pushed it aside. They went back and forth for a while until Steve gave him a mental snort and started snickering.

“Cap, no need to ruffle your feathers”, Fury was saying, unaware of their interaction. “Nobody was blaming Z. What she meant that usually psychics are vulnerable.”

“Yes”, Hill explained. “They need to concentrate when they use their abilities, and when they do they are defenseless against anything else than their actual target. If they are emphatic, the stressful situation alone can leave them completely useless.”

“I have read our files about the X-men. They have had many psychics in their strike teams during the years.”

“Yes, Steve, but they also have a team of no-psychic super powered soldiers, who are trained to subsidize them. The psychics themselves have a thorough combat training which most of them had started as teenagers. Against that background, could you imagine Marigold Jones as a field operative?”

She wasn’t very physically fit. And she started to be a bit old.

“Alright, Steve?” Hill was making sure. “The reason I asked you two to stay was something else, though. When the area was cleaned, they found an artifact our team has not been able to qualify. We were hoping maybe Z could tell us more about it.”

Director Hill lifted a metal-covered suitcase from the floor, opened it, and put it on the table. Inside there was only one thing; a metallic cube. Helmut felt the energy field it was transmitting, as well the magic the energy field was supposed to keep under control.

_What is that?_ Steve asked, but Helmut had to be sure before he could answer to his shieldmate. The magic felt familiar, but it could be some weird co-incidence.

Hill pushed lightly one corner of the cube and it opened. Alright, when was the last time Helmut had believed in co-incidents.

_That is a locket,_ he answered to Steve earlier question.

_I still have my eyes._ Helmut could hear  Steve’s frustration and it made him smirk in his mind. Steve gave him a mental snort. _But why is it… so… I don’t know, glowy._

“Our magic users don’t recognize the spells. They warned us that tinkering with that thing with physical means could be lethal. Ms. Jones was able to depict a huge amount of psychic energy inside of it, and she figured maybe it is some kind of battery. But as I said we have not been able to study it any further. We made a few non-intrusive tests, to gather possible fingerprints or DNA from its cover.”

“And who has provided us those?” Steve asked aloud, because his frustrating shieldmate wasn’t giving him any answers.

“Johann Schmidt. As you can see, the lock of the chain is broken. He probably lost this in a chaos when Iron Man and Thor destroyed Hydra jet and he had to eject.”

Steve took that one quite badly. Nothing much was seen outside, if the jumping jaw muscle was excluded.

“Z, have you seen this thing before?” Hill was asking. “Can you tell us something useful about it?”

“I have seen it”, Helmut said. “I just don’t know how much of use it will be for us.”

He reached out and pullet the locket from the cube by its chain.

“Do you know what it will do?” Fury said, ready to take a step backward in the first side of trouble. “Could there be some poison or explosives?”

“Kind of”, Helmut had to admit. “This is the reason for Red Skull still existing. There is the super serum, but even that wouldn’t have kept him going this long alone. He is perky for some 120 years old, don’t you think?”

“So Marigold Jones was right”, Hill wanted to be assured again. “It is a battery.”

Helmut raised the locket on the level of his eyes. He had a vague memory how he had played with it when it hanged from papa Johann’s neck.

“It is battery of hate”, he said bluntly, hoping Steve didn’t get agitated by his sudden emotions. “A clear and present hope for revenge, fueled by a memory of things which never came to pass. When it opens there are two very old photos and two locks of hair. Those belonged to Johann Schmidt’s shieldmate and their son.”

The uncomfortable silence after Helmut’s statement was tangible. Maria Hill was staring at the table her face unreadable. Fury took the locket from Helmut’s hand, gave it his penetrative stare as wanting the thing to talk its secrets.

“I see”, he said finally, handing the thing back to Helmut. “Well, if you want, you can keep it. After we have contacted Doctor Strange, and he will get rid off that magic.”

“Yes”, Helmut admitted. “I could...”

Something was happening. The magic around the locket was a simple protection spell, maybe the SHIELD mages were as scrappy as their psychics, and they haven’t realized… no, this was something else. Better safe than sorry then. Helmut tried to open his fingers, to put the locket back into the box, but for his annoyance his hand didn’t obey him. First he thought Steve was for some reason hindering the movement, but when he asked Steve to open their fingers, he felt the same helplessness radiating from his shieldmate.

“Look out! It is going to...”

Helmut didn’t hear the rest of Hill’s sentence. A psychic equivalent of live wire went through him, leaving him only half-conscious. The next thing he knew was Steve frantically shouting his name, spilling his worry all over his mind like water from the hose.

_Steve... Steve stop! I am alright._

_What, what the hell was that? It felt like..._

It really did, didn’t it. And the locket. It was opened, but not without a cost.

_Oh my God, Steve. Your hand…_

_Our hand,_ Steve corrected him. _Let me feel_ _all_ _the pain._ _You concentrate on that…_

Steve honestly didn’t know how to describe the thing in front of them; he hadn’t watched Star Wars. (One of the Hydra movie night classics. Everybody was keeping one’s fingers crossed for Darth Vader, but he never managed to beat his fatherly instincts.) Fury and Hill were thinking the same as Helmut. If the locket had been R2-D2, that one was a hologram of Princess Leia.

“Who is that?”

If Steve hadn’t been in an obvious pain, Helmut would have laughed aloud at Fury’s question. There were files about their family, lots of them, but maybe all the pictures and descriptions hadn’t prepared Fury for this sight. Most of the pictures of his father showed a stiff-backed officer in a black or a field grey SS-uniform, but this man was dressed in what a Prussian nobleman from the 20s considered a casual home wear; a V neck chevron sweater with a club collar shirt, wide legged trousers over two tone sports Oxford shoes and round, metal-framed glasses. That was not a science officer of the Third Reich nor the father of his childhood, he looked too young. (And too nerd, to be honest.) 

“That is incredible”, Fury said. “We had no idea Hydra was so far in producing holotechnology. Stark’s best efforts have been feeble in comparison. There was only one color, but this. He looks very much like a person. Like he is about to say something.”

The nerd glassed melted away and the face was covered with wrinkles, his clothes changed to muddy greys and blacks.

“I can feel him.” Steve confusion rolled over him as Helmut mumbled his observations aloud. “How can I… Fury, it is not a hologram! It’s not magic either, he is like me, a psychic entity.”

Before Fury was able to utter a command, Director Hill tapped her comm, ordering a complete shutdown of the meeting room. Helmut could feel the PSI dampeners coming online, they pushed uncomfortably against his mind. Could he have left the room if he wanted? Probably, with Steve at least. He wondered was his father weaker or stronger than him without a body. Was his powers different than his or the same?

The late Baron Heinrich Zemo didn’t look overly hostile. He looked mostly puzzled while looking at his son in the body of his mortal enemy.

_Can he possess somebody to get himself a body?_

Helmut didn’t know what to answer to Steve. It pissed him off. _He should be dead_ , he hissed. _You killed him._

_I killed you too and here we are._

“Helmut? You feel old.”

Helmut wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted to scream. “Yes, father. I feel quite fucking old after I have been fighting for almost seventy years in this idiocy your generation started.”

Older Zemo didn’t comment. It was like he had not fully comprehended what Helmut had said. His gaze circled around and halted on Fury.

“This doesn’t look like… are we not in Germany? Are we prisoners of war?”

“Sir, the war ended. We lost, but it was decades ago. You are supposed to be dead. What did you do in papa Johann’s locket?”

It seemed his father was seeing the real him like Steve had seen him through the spell Doctor Strange used to alter Helmut’s appearances.

“You feel so adult”, he repeated. “Yes, I died. I remember now. That man killed me, but then…”

What ever he was going to say was drowned in the blasting alarm. While Fury and Hill were gaining situation reports to their comm, the spectrer of late Baron Zemo had new information of his own.

“Oh great Odin! They found me! I can feel them coming.”

“Who?” Helmut shouted to be heard over the ruckus. Maybe he could communicate with his father through his mind, but now was not the time to experiment. “Who is coming?”

“Johann promised I would be safe… I would be with him.”

It surely didn’t feel safe, Helmut was able to think before everything around them vanished to the blinding brilliance of white light.

*

When Steve came around he was not overly surprised. He was used to Helmut’s mindplace, and the change of a scenery couldn’t imbalance him as it did for Fury or Director Hill. Or the personnel of the SHIELD base, Steve realized, as he looked around and started recognizing familiar faces in the crowd.

They were in a vast dance hall, but it was not one of those cheap places of his younger years, where Steve had sat alone at the table, nursing a glass of bad-tasting beer, while Bucky and his gal of the week were dancing among the other capable and pretty swirling bodies. No sir, this was a place Steve had seen only in the pictures in the history books or maybe in the movies, where high class people of long gone era pranced like peacocks in the park and stabbed each others with a blade of their tongues.

Steve was sure Helmut would be like a fish in the water right away. Not much so with Fury and Hill, who were both staring at themselves in the wall-sized mirror. Fury was in a tight frog coat with a sleek pants which didn’t leave watchers guessing the condition and fitness of gentleman’s legs. Hill’s shoulders and all the décolletage area were bare, but the helm of the skirt had more cloth one woman should need in a lifetime.

“What the…”

“I can’t breathe”, Hill was saying. “Am I shot?”

“No”, Fury concluded after a quick examination of her jade green dress. “At least not in your upper body, under that skirt thing God only knows… I think it is because of your corset.”

“A corset! What… We are in a mindplace, aren’t we?”

“Yes, Z, and if this your idea of humor…” Fury turned to face Helmut. “Jesus, have men really used these things? We would need some masculine liberation right now, or I am going to faint and I am not going to make it pretty.”

As always in the mindplace, Steve and Helmut were alone in their own astral bodies. Steve didn’t have to sync when he stepped besides Hill and helped her to loose the thing around Fury’s upper body. Steve refused to call it a corset, because that would have been too odd.

While he had been solving that problem, Helmut had been observing their surroundings. Steve could feel his distress and deduced the cause was the two unfamiliar gentleman who were approaching them punch glasses in their hands. The taller one made a curt bow to Hill, seemingly not confused by the sight where a lady was starting to loosen her shirt in public.

He said something in language which sounded like French. Hill answered with ease and took a glass he was handing. Soon all four were engaged in an animated conversation and didn’t seemed to notice anything outside their little circle.

“What is that?” Steve asked Helmut who was staring at the double of the exactly same gentleman who was now bowing to Hill, obviously asking her to the dance floor. Around them the minds of the hijacked agents and other SHIELD personnel were busying themselves with chit chat or dance like they had been practiced for years for this scene, to act like a gentle folk of the middle of 19th century.

“Well, isn’t this nice”, Helmut sighed. “Steve, some hundred and fifty years ago French was a common language of education and commerce, like English is nowadays. May I introduce my great grandfather Baron Dietrich Zemo and General-lieutenant Pierre Philippe Saint-Teyssier. This is Captain Steven Rogers. My shieldmate.”

What to say to that. What momma had taught him. If you were angry or confused, smile and be polite about it. “Always delighted to meet dead ancestors of my shieldmate. How do you do?”

“Delightful indeed”, Dietrich Zemo said and gave him a little bow. “How do you do? An American, I assume.”

“Yes”, Steve confirmed shortly. “Could anybody please explain what is going on?”

Steve question was ignored, though, because now the duo moved their interest in Helmut’s father who stood there staring at their abductors, frozen in fear or some other emotion Steve couldn’t decipher.

“No”, Heinrich said, but it was more a plea than a command.

“Heini”, the man introduced as Saint-Teyssier said. “Come to papa Frog. Come to the Frog King.”

Saint-Teyssier spread his arms and squatted like waiting for a small child to run into his lap.

“Johann...” Heinrich tried.

“Never fear, you will be with him shortly. He is your shieldmate and you are bonded, but you have to come to me now. When your grandfather and I came to this physical plain, we didn’t realize so much has changed. We saw from the minds of these people what happened. This whole area called Manhattan is in a blackout, and there will be lost of lives. We need to do this as quickly as possible before more harm happens. Come to me, child. Now.”

Steve didn’t know how did it happen, but there was the man called Saint-Teyssier, keeping in his arms a toddler, a boy, wearing a dress of all things. (Helmut could have told him little upper-class boys were dressed like that until the early decades of20th century.) Heinrich Zemo was nowhere to be seen so Steve assumed he was one who had changed. And so if he was, what Steve wanted to do, kill him again for his crimes? One time was enough, thank your. But his shieldmate didn’t felt so delighted about his turn of event.

“What is this? He escaped the trial once already and now you turned him into a child. A child! What do you think of doing?”

“We are looking through his life”, Dietrich Zemo explained calmly to his agitated descendant. “How he used his potential.”

“Potential.” Helmut sounded to Steve he wanted to spit after the word. “He established a prison camp in his home town. He gathered there innocent civilian people and helpless POWs and let my godfather to test and torture them until they died or mutated in monstrous ways. He designed weapons of mass destruction and gave them to the hands of the man without a prestige or honour, or even an ounce of decency and common sense.”

“I see…” Dietrich mumbled. He seemed a little taken aback by Helmut’s strong feelings about his father. “This situation… it’s much like Gotthard, isn’t it?”

“Yes”, Saint-Teyssier admitted.

Steve didn’t remember hearing that name, but it sounded so utterly German the man had to be a relative of Helmut or some outstanding historical figure. Or maybe both. The latter seemed to be the truth or at least as it was told in Zemo family chronicles Dietrich recited to them.

Gotthard of Haller. Or Gotthard the God-Fearing as he was also called. When he took the cross and finally reached the holy land after the months of perils and hurt, he raised his flag in many outstanding places. There was a cost, though. There were villages where crows grew fat after feasting on a flesh of the butchered women and children. The paladin of God showed no mercy for his surrendered enemies, and let the men under his command rob and rape and kill as they pleased. He rained a hell on earth on people who were to him the spawns of Satan himself. And it all was done with a blessing of his religious leader; if he would do as he was told, make this sacrifice for their great cause, there would be a reward for him waiting in Heaven.

All that sounded so familiar it was tragicomical, and that made Helmut only madder.

“The nobleman were illiterate, dumb oxen during that time. He didn’t know any better. My fathers, their generation, they were supposed to be the elite of Europe. They had Goethe! Schiller! Germany was superb in philosophy and science! He spit at our great heritage and turned his back to the civilized society. You look at his life and still think he had some potential? He has not!”

“You think that Gotthard didn’t understand”, Dietrich was asking, looking honestly curious. “A man his father named after the saint whose name meant Brave for God? You think he was a simple man, that he followed orders without wondering what gain or hurt he could get by doing so? Orders from the pope, orders from the great leader... If he was such a simpleton, then why it happened that after he left the Crusade, he spent the rest of his days in prayer and remorse? Feeding the poor, tending the sick, preaching for tolerance and care of his fellow man?”

“Yes, the remorse of the perpetrator. That has always helped the dead”, Helmut said with the tone which had potential to break Steve’s heart.

“As you well know, it is a start. We can consider him savage. A poor excuse of a gentleman. But still he knew inside of him what he had done to his fellow man wasn’t right. He knew but for whatever reason that knowledge was still unable to stop him. A pope. A cross. A flag. A leader. A madness and lust of revenge you think claimed your papa Johann. That is not important. The reasons are not important.”

Dietrich stared at his forgotten punch glass before taking a cautious sip. Steve found it peculiar, but maybe even psychic creatures had their nervous habits. Or maybe he was embarrassed what he was going to say next. “This it not easy to explain, but I will try anyway. Helmut, my boy, when I was young I was not very fond of that civilization you said we Germans are so good at. I was a restless boy, and more restless as a young man, a hooligan, some may say. I was not sophisticated with my letters, to be honest, I was hardly able to read and write, and in one time I had this very boring teacher. He will help us now, because he spoke fondly and often about the old antique philosophers and particularly this one. Maybe it was Socrates, I am not sure, but I remember how that philosopher claimed that everyone has a sparkle inside of his very soul, which tells him how to live like a human being. A spark of the ideal.”

“That is what is left when deeds are done or left undone”, Saint-Teyssier continued the thought as Dietrich fell mute again. Steve had been concentrating so deeply on Dietrich’s debate with Helmut, he hadn’t notice where the toddler-Heinrich had gone and glimpsed instinctively around. No children, but light. Lots of light, the dancers, the ballroom itself was starting to fade and he grabbed Helmut’s arm; to protect or to seek safety, Steve honestly didn’t know that moment.

“There won’t be what has been, but what could have been”, Saint-Teyssier continued. “A potential of the ultimate power to be the best as one can be. To be _übermensch_ like Heinrich thought, understanding so little of it. Some souls had to to be peeled off more than the others to find that sparkle.”

“You are… skimming my father?”

“Yes. Like someone will do to you and Captain Rogers when it is time. And then… you will shine.”

No, it wasn’t Helmut’s time. It was Heinrich’s. The boy was gone and instead of a child there was a man in an old-fashioned infantry uniform. (Germans and their uniforms!) It was still muted colors, but it looked nothing like Helmut’s field greys. He even had _Pickelhaube_ , a spiked helmet. The ornamental front plate showed a large, spread-winged Prussian eagle, which shined golden from the black leather. And then that goddammit dramatic streak of Zemos made an osprey appear above Heinrich’s head like the dove of Holy Spirit in the altar paintings. All that was needed was some pompous background music from a heavy German opera and they were done.

“Soon”, Saint-Teyssier said like reading Steve’s thoughts. But yes, that is what the man did. “Hurry!” he said to Heinrich, who disappeared from their sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe it was Socrates, I am not sure, but I remember how that philosopher claimed that everyone has a sparkle inside of his very soul, which tells him how to live like a human being. A spark of the ideal."
> 
> If somebody is wondering, the philosopher Baron Dietrich Zemo is trying to recite is not Socrates but Plato and his Theory of Forms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato#The_Forms


	20. The Keepers of the Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Zemos keep traveling through the realms. And some of them end up in… Bronx?

Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, waited in his place of meditation the things to unravel.

“But master”, his assistant said. “All that disruption. Those beings are unnatural for our physical plane. They could be hostile. We are the guardians of this reality. Shouldn’t we...”

“No”, Strange said.

His eyes were closed, but that didn’t hinder him to notice Wong’s little demonstration. His assistant and his duster moved over the priceless relics in a manner which raised lots of mummified spiders in the air. Which reminded him… It made Strange’s nose inch and he was about to sneeze when Wong finally moved his heavy heels over the floor and out of the room.

The next time Stephen saw Wong was two days later when his assistant appeared at the door of his study, announcing that a certain Charles Xavier was hoping for an audience.

Strange levitated downwards until he was able to touch the floor with his feet (he didn’t jump, he wasn’t a race horse) and raised one of his well-plucked brows.

“Why is everyone so surprised when I come to see them as a flesh and blood person?” Xavier wondered. “Oh, thank you Wong.”

His assistant had appeared again with a tea set and a plate full of cookies. The chocolate ones, Strange noticed, which he usually saved for Stephen. (Wong was one who wouldn’t let a good grudge go to waste.)

“I assume, you were like me during that… incident”, Xavier said after they settled down. “You were pushing your head deep in the sand and hoping they wouldn’t notice and swat us like flies.”

Strange did his nonchalant brow to admit the things Charles had said, before he hid his other expressions behind the teacup. “How are your students, Charles?” he asked after taking a careful sip. “You are hosting at least half a dozen untrained, immature psychic minds. Was there casualties?”

“When it started, Emma and I were able to cloak our students until we all get to the safe room. It was a lucky coincidence that all of us were in the school ground, that unfocused burst of power would have left us comatose. Otherwise, the little I was able to interact, I didn’t feel any ill intend from them.”

“Me neither”, Stephen admitted. “It was like they stepped on the path and didn’t notice in time there was an ant trail… we being the ants, naturally. But I assume you didn’t honor me with your personal visit to lament our powerlessness.”

“You assumed right, Stephen. When I met Baron Zemo and his shieldmate I was wondering such a random mutation breading over generation after generation. But it wasn’t random, Stephen, was it? I sense you have met that power before.”

Of course, Stephen thought. That snoopy old bag. He put his cup away, stood up and took a few steps to easy his nerves, masquerading those for an urge to take a random, impressive looking book from the self and browse it uselessly.

“There are forces who promote creation and forces who promote destruction”, he started with a lecture tone. Charles’s patient expression told him he wasn’t fooling the man. “Then there are forces which are doing those both things, and those who are nothing of the kind. With those latter cases, it is not about balance, more like… there is life, Charles, but unlike many peoples like to believe, its opposite is not death, which is a part of most things born. So the real opposite is the antitheses of life, maybe we can call it anti-life. And then there are the forces which keep that anti-life from touching the essence of the living things. The Keepers of the Gate, they are called. I just didn’t realize the connection when we first met Baron Zemo and Captain. There was a book in the library of the Ancient one, I remember mentions about the servicing warrior spirits… but as you said, this seems more like a deliberate breeding program, and there is no evidence the Zemo family is the only one deployed.”

“Generations after generations of warriors and military men for the eternal battlefield which makes Ragnarök look like toddles skirmish in a play park.”

“Yes”, Stephen said, losing his taste for a book and pushing it back to the shelf. “I am not envious of them.”

“You mean Captain and Helmut Zemo? I wouldn’t worry too much about things to come. I didn’t feel any discomfort from our visitors. They were like… I haven’t met any beings like that, not even with Jean and the Phoenix-force. Jean was always so confused, in so much pain, but they… It was like they were psychic equivalents of supernovas, a vast and colorful 4th of July fireworks which just went on and on. I bet it is not so bad for them. It is this moment we have to be worried about.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fury called me. We tried, boosted our powers any way possible, but we can’t locate him.”

Fury had contacted him too, and he had searched, but as Charles said, there was no sign of Helmut Zemo anywhere. It was like he had disappeared from the face of earth and all the psychic planes Stephen was familiar with.

“You think the Keepers took him too?”

“Poor Captain.” Charles was always so emphatic. Stephen would have wanted to be like that too, but he remembered too well the disgusting uniform Helmut Zemo had been wearing in his mindplace. “It is true Helmut Zemo was already physically dead, so maybe the force decided he had to go with his parents. Apparently, they don’t have to wait for the bounded partner to die from natural causes… hopefully, they don’t usually help the process as they did to Johann Schmidt.”

“Maybe those powers knew something we don’t.”

“Maybe”, Charles admitted. “I asked Fury to put Rogers on suicide watch, but they can’t keep him there for weeks or months. We have no way to keep Rogers alive, if those powers decide to take him.”

“Or if he decides to go after Zemo himself, you mean.”

“Yes.”

*

“Where am I?”

That was a classic, Helmut thought. It fit so many occasions: when you woke up alone in the dark or after you had been kidnapped, and this time both of those things had come to pass.

There was some movement behind him. Another classic. A bogeyman in the dark. Helmut heard a familiar, ominous sound, and his instinct took over. He was down on his stomach, trying to make himself as small as possible, when enemy’s artillery fire shot to the trenches on his right.

Trenches. This was not his war. This was the previous one, and Helmut was not doing, just witnessing as German infantry prepared to attack. There was his father in parade rest, conversing with one of his men, a narrow-faced teenager a few years of his junior. (At least they had decent metal helmets already.) They talked a few minutes and then the officer continued his round. The teenager… It took Helmut a few minutes to realize it had been papa Johann.

Was this the Somme? If it was…

Helmut knew he had guessed right when the scene changed. A group of soldiers who were so caked with mud and blood they looked like snowmen made of very dirty snow, were struggling forward. The convey of walking wounded, it seemed to be. It was papa Johann again, but this time he was carrying another soldier, whose left leg was tangling as a bloody mess. That would be later replaced by uncle Arnim’s superb mechanical foot, which made his father move almost like he had no handicap. But there was, wasn’t it? Helmut realized this was the turning point, the moment when everything started to go wrong.

Was this what happened when one was peeled? Or where they showing this to Helmut for his benefit?

Helmut saw his first horse, a tiny pony, and papa Johann was there besides him with his mild-mannered mare; a thing which amused Heinrich to no end. A member of Zemo family, who was not comfortable with the horses. (Oh father, you should see my Steve riding!)

Helmut witnessed all those little marks he had missed in his childhood, the scenes and feelings of the time long past. There were happy moments and there were not so nice things, when those quiet, stiff-necked fights among the family members seemed to suck the air out of the room. There were cold indifference and angry silences hovering over the dinner table. Heinrich’s father, Alaric, saying something so poisonous and hurtful he felt tears in the corners of his father’s eyes when papa Johann squeezed his shieldmate’s hand under the tablecloth.

Papa Johann was not from a military family. He was not even a nobleman, but the only son of a wealthy banker. He was scholarly type, had wanted to be a man of the cloth before he had bonded with Heinrich in those long days in Somme. He was openly despised by Alaric, who believed he would have a bad influence over his eldest son. And Alaric was right. Heinrich had his wild, warrior streak, but after he wounded and bonded with Johann it diminished until he had to hide his distaste for military life under cover of his bad leg. (A Zemo as an engineer! Never heard thing, almost as bad as being a merchant!) Helmut felt his father’s ambition, his despair, his feeling of never being enough for his parents… so classical base of frustration.

“I promised to you we would move to Switzerland. If there were a new war, I promised we would be no part of it. I wanted to make clocks. The best clocks in the whole world, and I… I am so sorry, Johann. I am so sorry I let you down. I was too thirsty for praise and fame from other peoples hands and lips, and I didn’t care how I got them to fill my emptiness. Then all of us were dead and I let you crumble alone into pain and madness, blaming others for our demise and misfortune.”

Helmut had waited to see papa Johann as an infant like had happened to his father, but it was a total opposite. The occasion was remarkable, though. It was the last time anybody saw Red Skull his mask on. That horrible cover crackled and fell off revealing the face of the young man Helmut knew only from the old family pictures. His clothes were changing until they settled on a humble black suit and long black overcoat, resembling but not quite managing a soutane of the seminarian, studying for the priesthood.

“I was weak, yes. You needed my power and guidance and I let you fall. I let you do your way, even if I saw in you the darkness and hunger which could not be sated by my feeble efforts. We were bonded because you needed my light, my humanity, my softness to keep yourself in a right path, and I failed my task.”

Maybe that was it. Realization of all your mistakes and then letting them go. But it was still… Shouldn’t there be a real punishment? Hellfire? At least something?

Suddenly the place he was felt crowded. Helmut looked around and saw vaguely familiar faces. There were men, and only men. He knew some of the woman of their family had tried to bond with their male or female companions or husbands and they had never succeeded.

Chromosome Y bonded magic responsive gene. The other way around wasn’t peculiar either. Stupid magic, so unpredictable and unlogical, Helmut thought when he got an idea. If this was the place for the hidden truths, then be it. He had one he wanted out of his chest.

“Uncle Manfred! Uncle Manfred! Are you here?”

Of course he was. Helmut took a step backward when his father’s youngest brother halted in front of him.

When Helmut had been a teenager he had had his own god. Not the god of the Christian faith, or the Viking god of his father’s liking, but a pagan idol: a tank commander, an unbreakable hero of Operation Typhoon and the Battle of Kursk, who had in his Hugo Boss labelled uniform looked like an Aryan ideal of the _übermensch_. His uncle Manfred. Young Helmut’s perfect knight with his steed made of iron and fire, and now only a rotting face of Helmut’s avatar, the Guardian.

Manfred had been a well-educated man. After he was wounded the third time and was deemed unfit for the active service, he had written petition after eloquent petition to his superiors until finally they found a perfect post for his perseverance and orderly mind. They send him to the Nazi-occupied western Poland, Kulmhof. Later on the place was going to be better known with the name Chelmno in the history books telling the grim tale of the Holocaust.

It was mostly a co-incidence Helmut had contacted Peggy Carter at the same week he heard the easily guessed end result of his uncle’s war crimes trial. After all those decades that followed... And this one here, this place was as if getting a free membership card for a hard-core fetish club, when all you wanted to do during your weekends was some light gardening.

“You! I am very angry with you all! Let me out of here! If I have to spend the rest of the eternity with you stupid idiots, I want some life first! I have spend seventy years correcting your mistakes! Let me out! Let me back to my shieldmate! Let me back to Steve or I will pester you until...”

Something was happening. Helmut would have difficulties to describe it, but it was like a rhythm had changed. He was in the darkness and then he was in the darkness which was different. He felt something again. Some kind of tickling. Suddenly he was filled with that nasty feeling when you have been holding your breath for too long and your lungs felt like bursting.

The tickling continued. It was no tickling, it was a touch. A touch on his hand. Against his skin. He…

He had to breathe. Helmut sucked in a huge amount of air which made him sat up and cough like he was suffocating. He was sitting. Coughing. He was doing things, he was in the body again, and he tried to touch Steve with his mind, but felt only a faint, distant hum of their bond.

There was screaming. A woman speaking Spanish, speaking too loud into his face and hugging Helmut like he was her long lost son. Maybe a grandson, actually, Helmut deducted after he had realized two things. He was indeed in a body again and he was there alone. He felt panic rising when he wondered what had happened to Steve, but then he saw his hands. A light brown like the woman’s who was now praying and praising God of this miracle.

Alright. What had Stark called him? A body-snatcher? It had been a joke, which had now became a reality. Helmut probed carefully around his borrowed mind but didn’t feel the original owner of the body, only some vague fragments of presence and soon even those disappeared.

He sat there patiently when doctors talked over his head, wondered the bullet holes which just weren’t there. Not even scars. The old woman was still talking about the miracle, but the hospital staff was starting to voice other opinions. Either Helmut was a mutant with a self-healing ability, or there had been a mix-up. Both conclusions had their disadvantages, so they left him gingerly alone after brief, superficial examination. Helmut had deducted from their talks there had been a shootout and there were several wounded, the hospital was flooded with the patients.

Helmut spoke eight languages, Spanish was only one of them. He decided to keep it simple as he turned toward the old woman who seemed to be lost in her prayer.

_Granny, wait here. I need to use a bathroom._

Helmut was in luck and the bathroom near the nurse station was empty. He had to take a double take after seeing himself in the mirror. There was nothing unusual he being a Latino, he had guessed it already, but his face. The left side of it and his forehead were covered with dark and clumsy-made cartel tattoos.

There were light scars in his upper body which had been lethal wounds according the doctor. Had it been a gunfight over drugs? Avocados? About who’s right it was to collect taxes from the local bar owner? Who cared. They had put him inside a gang member who was almost a head shorter than his original self. (So much adjusting before he could use his blades efficiently again!)

Maybe Helmut had pissed his relatives off by refusing them. Or maybe they were just demonstrating a fair Zemo family trait: a sick sense of humor. He returned to the old woman, a plan taking shape in his mind.

_Granny, am I a bad man?_

She didn’t have to ponder the question. A brief nod was all the answer he needed.

_You don’t have to worry. All of it is in the past. I am not really here any more, I am among the angels now._

Helmut pulled the old woman into his mindplace, taking her in his arms when her body went limp. He made some hasty clouds and organ music and appeared in front of her with a pair of white wings and a perfect halo, dressed in an alba. She was crying, but Helmut felt her other emotions and tasted them with caution. Her grandchild was dead and her uttermost feeling was one of relief, dipped in shame. It was finally over for both of them. The man wouldn’t hurt anybody or didn’t get hurt himself.

The room wasn’t exactly a room. It was some corner of the closet pace with a hospital stretcher, on which the previous owner of Helmut’s new vessel had died. Helmut pulled from a shelf some clean towels and put them to cover the worst blood stains before lifting her on it. He had sent her to the normal sleep. There were a bag full of clothes; obviously the old lady had been optimistic (or pessimistic) when she had came to see him… the man. Helmut pulled on a white T-shirt and snug-fitting jeans and pushed his bare feet into the sneakers. He wondered for a second about the foot fungus, but realized soon it would be his own, or this body’s own, anyway.

Where to now? He needed a phone and a transport and some money. And a way to get across the border and back to the USA.

There was no other way, he realized soon. He would have to contact Fury. Any other plan was too dangerous without intel about his situation. Those who had shot this body dead could still be out there, waiting. He had a brief, panicky thought about how Steve would react after he saw this new Helmut. Maybe he would be abhorrent or maybe it was like with the face of Mr. McGinnis, Steve looking at him through their bond and caring little of his outer appearances. He knew well what his shieldmate would say if he didn’t have guts even to try.

He was planning a daring feat of phone snatching, when a golden circle started to form besides the laundry bin. He didn’t wait for Strange to present an invitation, but hopped through immediately the circle was big enough to use.

Strange didn’t show himself to change pleasantries. Helmut was under the assumption Sorcerer Supreme was not a fan of his, but for some reason he had helped him. The transport pushed him out on the sidewalk. For a second Helmut was worried, put then he saw the cars with familiar plates. The buildings too seemed familiar, but it still took him some ten minutes before he was able to orientate himself enough, and that only after he visited a local bar and asked the bartender for directions. He was in Bronx of all places. The man told him the Avengers headquarters had been relocated to the Stark Tower, which meant his teammates were ten miles away from his current location.

Yeah, the bad boy tattoos. When he asked to borrow a mobile the bartender did that without any problems. There was a list of phone numbers he had memorized, just in case. Now it came handy.

“Where did you get this number?” Stark asked instead of greetings. Why Helmut hadn’t called to Fury was about his lust to meet a friendly and confused, not a calculating face.

“Tony, it’s me. The goddammit fanatic shithead Nazi bastard with the best brothel services you have ever been able to taste. May Day has been missing you, Mister Oh-god-you-are-so-much-better-than-James.”

There was a shocked silence and then Tony asked for an address.

“That is in Bronx! Where have you… Never mind. Don’t move. I will be there as fast as I can get my armor on.”

“Just don’t tell Steve. There are complications. Probably bad ones.”

He heard Tony snort before the man closed the connection. Yes, Tony was right. There always was and never anything nice either.

It took some twenty minutes. During the time Helmut got himself so agitated he wondered if he will piss himself. It was like a beginning of a joke. Iron Man, Captain America, and Wasp walked into a bar. Tony and Janet halted and looked around but Steve was coming straight towards the place where Helmut was sitting on a stool, nervously twiddling with a napkin. Helmut felt him through their bond and it was not a slight, vague thing like before, but a vein pulsing with life and cautious wonder. There were three other men and a woman near him, but there was no hesitation from Steve’s part. He covered Helmut’s shoulder with his hand, the fingers inside a red leather glove surrounding his muscles and bones as if daring him to escape from their grip. Helmut turned and then there was Tony too and Janet and there were lots of hugs from those individuals not wearing a metal armor.

“Too bad I don’t drink any more, because this certainly is the time you lean back in the lazy chair, kick the shoes from your feet, and open a thirty years old bottle of your favorite whiskey.”

“Stark, what I told you...”

“Shut up, you idiot”, Steve said, his tone raspy with emotion. “Of course he told me. It has been six months. Come on. Let’s go home.”


	21. Epilogue or Two Weeks Later

It was a duty free afternoon, and Tony’s all time favorite coffee shop (of the week). Steve drank his sugary goodness and watched from their table as Tony helped Bucky to flirt with one of the baristas. His former best friend seemed to remember what that was about. He just didn’t remember Steve. Or he did, but only as Captain America, the hated adversary of Hydra.

_You are annoyed._

_Maybe a bit,_ Steve admitted. Helmut snorted, and then Steve felt how a foot touched his under the table. Their teammates were getting used to their strange reactions which seemed to come from nowhere. Steve and Helmut could still talk with each other without uttering the words aloud. Helmut said it was not unusual, but rare ability among shieldmates.

Helmut turned from his seat to follow Steve’s gaze and then gave him his nod of understanding.

_It is about Bucky, isn’t it?_

His best friend had been a ladies man, and he was slowly climbing back on the wagon. Steve had nothing to be anxious about. He had been in love with Bucky, he could confess it to himself and to Helmut, but maybe that had been more like a teenager’s crush. He was an adult now. Doctor Samson would say Steve should demand more from his life than some fantasy about a drunken blow job. Bucky would have been alright with that idea if he had been horny and intoxicated enough, but even back then Steve had valued their friendship too much to be so selfish. Bucky had been as good a pal any man can hope for, but he had no patience for Steve’s preferences. He had gotten angry if Steve even implied to his deviation.

_I just…_ Steve made a helpless gesture. _He thought I_ _didn’t_ _try hard enough, and if I just let go of my boyish awkwardness,_ _I_ _would_ _easily_ _used to_ _be with_ _a_ _wom_ _a_ _n._

_Yes, that. They tried it that way at concentration camps. With the homosexual Aryan males. To de-homosexual them, they were forced to intercourse with the female prisoners in the camp brothels._

Maybe they should talk about something else. At least when they were in public. Steve didn’t want to feel helpless rage against things he couldn’t do anything about. It wouldn’t ease the suffering of the victims long gone, and it wasn’t like he and Bucky couldn’t learn to be friends again. They could, of course. And if that didn’t work out, the Avengers were like an extended family. He and Bucky wouldn’t need to understand or like the same things to be able to work and live together. The family members cared and loved each others without conditions.

_So the eternal battle..._

_As Strange had said._

_Maybe we can still unbound…_

This one conversation had continued for two weeks now. Steve started to be sick and tired of it. _Sh_ _ut up, or I will kiss you, and that barista will forget all about my poor former B_ _F_ _F while ogling at our_ _gay_ _cuteness._

_You wouldn’t dare._

_Try me. I don’t like all those people speculating you to be Tony’s newest hot squeeze. Maybe we should take a selfie and post it. We would break Twitter, what do you think._

_Yes, you already use emojis and abbreviations like a teenager you almost are. Why not high school drama too. You know, back then…_

_Here we go again. Please, pops. Tell us youngsters what we are doing wrong._

_Shut up, Steve. These people are in their teens until they are almost forty. Then they start moaning and whining because the smart ones of them realize they really have to start deciding if they ever want to have something so bourgeois as a nuclear family._

Now was Steve’s turn to feel Helmut’s agitation. Heinrich Zemo had had brothers and sisters, seven of them, so Zemo family would be alive and well. The warrior factory was still working strong. But never to have a child of your own loins because you were wearing somebody else’s body. Maybe it was that sort of thing a man can feel bad about. Steve hadn’t thought it was something he could ever manage, so he was in two minds about it. That didn’t mean he couldn’t feel sympathy for his shieldmate’s distraught.

Only future could tell. Helmut’s mutant powers were unpredictable to put it mildly.

For example, Helmut’s new body had had those ugly drawings all over his face. Tony had promised to arrange something he called a laser surgery to get rid off them, but finally they didn’t have to do anything. When Steve had waken up besides Helmut after their first night (which had been nice and steamy both in a real world and in Helmut’s mindplace), Helmut’s face had been clear of the tattoos. And what was even stranger, he had gotten his own eyes back. Just after Steve had thought what he missed the most was the sharp airiness of Helmut’s gaze. Those brown ones were pretty too, but they weren’t the same. It was like trying to compare a sleek predatory bird to a thick-furred bear. Both were hunters but dwell in completely different environments.

Unconscious body alterations. That was the time to consult an expert in mutant genetics.

Professor Xavier was once again fascinated, but he had no other advises to give but trying not to think his former self. It could be that Helmut’s new body would regress anyway.

It had been two weeks now, and nothing more seemed to happen. Maybe it was because of Helmut’s Teutonic sense of _Ordnung_ and his sheer determination. He was also putting himself through rigorous training with his blades to adjust himself to his new dimensions. Steve and Nat had been helping him with his hand-to-hand practices, and they were constantly testing Helmut’s new tricks as a team.

There were three of them. They had come in during Steve and Helmut’s conversation, and Steve didn’t pay attention first. They looked much like ordinary teenaged girls, but one of them had a katana tied over her anime themed backpack and the other one’s eyebrows lit on fire time to time.

They were loud. And rude. Ordering the barista around. The one with the fire powers was whining about her “lukewarm” latte. It was an excuse to show off, which ended as she accidentally set her mug and napkins on fire. Her companion put it out with some kind of blue jelly, but then that stuff was all over the place. It evaporated leaving turquoise- colored smudges, which could not be rubbed off. There were burn marks all over the bar also. The damages to the furniture were likely costly, but the baristas were too scared of the strange display to say something.

Steve’s jaw muscles jumped. How he hated bullies!

He gave them a fair chance. He asked politely if they would apologize for disturbance and promise to pay for damages. First it seemed to work out (Steve was using his Captain voice), and he was starting to hope the situation would dissolve itself as one of the girls took her phone and dialed her mother (who according the girl was a top bitch in some tech company or something) but then the brunette barista who had been flirting with Bucky realized who they were talking to and started whispering frantically with her friends.

“Hey, Juveli! They are saying that blond guy is Captain America!”

Alright. Fire, Blue Jelly and now one with a super hearing. Steve hoped laser eyes and ice breath didn’t come with a package.

“Shut up, that is not Captain Flagpole”, the one called Juveli denied. “It is just some jock who is too stupid to notice when he will get burned. Right, Abite?”

“Right”, the one with phone mumbled. “My mum didn’t have time to come here anyway.”

The nameless one blew a blue jelly balloon from her mouth. It separated and popped all over Tony’s face which got a faint blue tint. The girls tittered in unison.

“Tony, be calm”, Steve said, when it seemed the little menaces were going to get a tongue lashing of the century.

“Hey, if that guy is really Captain Vintage, then that one had to be Tony Stark, his sugar daddy.”

“His…” Tony was flabbergasted. “I am not that old!”

“Were are mutants, anyway”, Juveli said, ignoring Tony. “Only mutants can handle mutant things. You heroes can’t do anything to us if we don’t endanger public safety.”

The New York Mutant Policy act 57. Steve knew about that one. “How about… What if you get to choose? Apologize, ask your parents to pay for the damages or…”

“Or what, Grandpa Tightass? You will call the X-men?”

A new round of giggling and tittering issued. “Scott Summers is my bitch, man.”

“And I am sure to share that information with Emma Frost the next time I see her and Scott.” That one made their smug faces pale a little. “But I wasn’t talking about your esteemed teachers. They are not your only x-gene positive peers around here.”

Z waved to them from the table. Blue Jelly was the quick-wittiest of the lot, but as her friends, she too went limp so fast she wasn’t able to engage her powers (like… jelly bubble gum attack?) Tony grabbed her into his lap as Bucky had followed suit with Abite. Steve himself had Juveli.

“What is wrong with them? Are they dead?”

It was a little disturbing the barista’s question didn’t diminish the interested looks his colleague was giving to Bucky.

“No, kids have a sugar rush.” Tony gave the man his most charming playboy smile. “Now it is time for their naps.”

_Interesting. They have been studying with Xavier. I felt some resistance._

_Yes?_

_Nothing much. Like I was walking along the forest trail and then I must hop a little because there is a good-sized stone on my path._

_Alright, Helmut. As long as they are OK. They are just stupid kids. We were much worse in their age… Are they with the Guardian?_

_No, they would just make rude comments about his maggots. You know how sensitive he is. I used the Quick and Simple._

_You mean you dropped them into the bathtubs full of piss and snakes._

Helmut smiled like a self-assured prick he was. _You realize we are three adult men keeping_ _the bodies of_ _dazed minors upright while you are eating them,_ Steve mused _. Maybe you should_ _hurry_ _._

_You have a point. I will wake them up._

It was lots of screaming and running after that. The girls left in such a hurry there was no apologizes or more money calls. Steve could contact their school, but maybe it was easier Tony just gave his credit card and asked to be charged for any damages. After that they didn’t get banned as Steve had expected, but got complimentary coffees instead.

“I should have changed their ring tones for something embarrassing while they were out of it. Or hack their social media accounts”, Tony mused. “To give them a little lesson about that Captain Flagpole remark.”

“That was actually funny.” At least more funny than some fifteen-year-old commenting his nether regions. “You’re just sore they thought you’re old.”

The priority alarm interrupted efficiently Tony’s objections.

“Bucky, you go back to the mansion”, Steve said after he checked the screen of his phone. “It was Nat. She will pick up Janet and Sam and then meet us. Some giant monster of unknown origin has surfaced in Forth Flag. Thor is already on his way.”

“Our gear is in Tony’s car.”

Steve was well aware. “Alright! Race you there.”

“Was that an inside joke?” Tony shouted as Steve and Helmut rushed towards the door. “It was, wasn’t it? I hate you guys! Wait at least until I get my card… Oh, goddammit! Susannah, no excuse me, Gina, Gina, please, don’t buy half a world with my company card… Guys! Don’t run so fast… I am not old, I am just well seasoned. Steve, wait for me! Z! Listen! I just remembered I installed a new burglar alarm into my car...”

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

That's all, folks! Thanks for reading and leaving kudos & comments! If you like it long, humorous, with a plot, and full of Avengers, why not to try this one next: <https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614553>


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